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The Effects of Gendered Social Capital on U.S. Migration: A Comparison of Four Latin American Countries

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Demography

Abstract

This article contributes to understandings of gendered social capital by analyzing the effects of gendered ties on the migration of men and women from four Latin American countries (Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic) to the United States. The research theorizes the importance of strong and weak ties to men and women in each sending country as a product of the gender equity gap in economic participation (low/high) and incidence of female-led families (low/high). The findings reveal that ties to men increase the odds of migration from countries where gender equity and incidence of female-led families are low, while ties to women are more important for migration from countries where gender equity and female-led families are high. Previous research on migration and social capital details the importance of network ties for providing resources and the role of gender in mediating social capital quality and access to network support. Results reveal that not only are different kinds of ties important to female and male migration, but migrants from different countries look to different sources of social capital for assistance.

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Notes

  1. We use the 2009 Global Gender Gap Report because 2009 was the first year for which the gender equity gap for economic participation and opportunity subindex was comparable for all five countries. The subindex is a weighted composite of five measures, and data for two measures were not available for Nicaragua for earlier years.

  2. The MMP and LAMP are both collaborative research projects based at Princeton University and the University of Guadalajara. The data are available online (http://mmp.opr.princeton.edu/ and http://lamp.opr.princeton.edu/).

  3. The convention of using the natural logarithm produces the same results, but it is less intuitive to interpret an increase of a factor of 2.72 (the base of the natural logarithm).

  4. We obtained this odds ratio by adding the logit coefficients for married and female × married, and then exponentiating the sum to obtain the odds ratio.

  5. Please see footnote 4.

  6. Four failures were completely determined in the model that included three-way interactions.

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Acknowledgments

Authors’ names are presented alphabetically to reflect equal contributions. Thank you to C. Alison Newby, Bonnie Erickson, Janine Baxter, Erin Leahey, Francisco Perales, Tsui-o Tai, Sergi Vidal, Mark Western, Jane Zavisca, and to the incredibly helpful reviewers at Demography for their comments and contributions to the finalization of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Social Science Research, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

    Rochelle R. Côté

  2. Department of Sociology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA

    Jessica Eva Jensen & Sandra M. Way

  3. School of Sociology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA

    Louise Marie Roth

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  1. Rochelle R. Côté
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  2. Jessica Eva Jensen
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Correspondence to Rochelle R. Côté.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 7 Logistic regression estimates (odds ratios) of the probability of migration to the United States from four Latin American countries, interaction models
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Côté, R.R., Jensen, J.E., Roth, L.M. et al. The Effects of Gendered Social Capital on U.S. Migration: A Comparison of Four Latin American Countries. Demography 52, 989–1015 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-015-0396-z

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