This article empirically investigates the relationship between the globalization of economic production and international migration by focusing on the case of Mexico. We describe undocumented Mexican migration to the US in the context of global economic restructuring and review previous studies. We then apply a multilevel modeling technique to retrospective data gathered by the Mexican Migration Project in order to test whether the density of manufacturing operations in Mexican communities explains variation in individuals' odds of making an undocumented migration to the US in the previous five years. The analysis indicates that higher densities of manufacturing operations are associated with lower odds of undocumented migration, net of controls. Moreover, this effect is stronger in Mexican communities located in northern border states. We discuss the findings in the context of previous research and elaborate on potential future research directions.
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