Mexican Immigrants: The Economic Dimension

Abstract

The high rate of population growth in Mexico and the very wide gap in income and consumption per capita have encouraged an increasing migration of Mexican nationals to the United States. Recently legal immigration from Mexico has averaged about 58,000 persons per year. Illegal migration may also be substantial, but it is more difficult to quantify. About 1 million Mexican illegal aliens have been apprehended annually in recent years, with over 90 percent being apprehended at the border during or shortly after a surreptitious entry. Mexican immigrants, whether legal or illegal, tend to have very low skill levels as measured by years of schooling, English-language proficiency, or occupational skills. As a consequence their earnings in the United States are low relative to other immigrants and U.S.-born Mexican Americans; however, their earnings are high relative to their opportunities in Mexico. The earnings disadvantages of Mexican immigrants diminish with additional years in the U.S. labor market.

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References

U.S., Department of Justice , 1982 Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1985); and unpublished tables from the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Jeffrey S. Passel and Karen A. Woodrow , “Geographic Distribution of Undocumented Immigrants: Estimates of Undocumented Aliens Counted in the 1980 Census by State,” International Migration Review, 18(3):642-671 (Fall 1984).

3. The discussion of the 1980 census data in this section is based on computations made from the U.S. Census Bureau's Public Use Sample, B and C Samples, and are for either a one-in-fifty or a one-in-a-hundred sample of the population.

4. It is striking that among second-generation Americans aged 14 and older in 1970, 95 percent of those with a Mexican-born parent, but only 70 percent of those with a parent from a non-Hispanic non-English-speaking country, reported that a language other than English was spoken in the home when they were children. U.S., Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census , National Origin and Language, Subject Report, 1970 Census of Population (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1973), tab. 12.

5. The earnings disadvantage of Mexican immigrants compared with non-Hispanic white immigrants, other things being the same, did not change during the 1970s.

David S. North and Marion F. Houstoun , The Characteristics and Role of Illegal Aliens in the U.S. Labor Market: An Exploratory Study (Washington, DC: Linton, 1976).