Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Although there is evidence documenting the impacts of Mexican parents’ migration to the United States on the educational attainment of the children they leave behind, the potential role of parents’ legal status in stratifying their children's educational achievement is poorly understood. Using data from the Mexican Migration Project, I estimate the educational effects of parents’ documentation status for the children left behind in Mexico. I utilize coarsened exact matching and entropy balancing, alongside community fixed effects, in a counterfactual regression framework to address the endogeneity of parental migration decisions. I find that parental migration's effectiveness as a mechanism for securing educational gains among children left in Mexico differs by parents’ legal status. Documentation allows migrant parents to translate their experiences in the United States into relatively greater educational achievement for their children in Mexico. In the post-1986 period, the non-immigrant children of undocumented parents experienced a significant education penalty. These findings elucidate the effect of US immigration policy on social stratification in Mexican society.

Keywords

education Mexico legal status

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abrego

L. J

. 2006. “‘I Can’t Go to College Because I Don’t Have Papers’: Incorporation Patterns Of Latino Undocumented Youth.” Latino Studies 4(3): 212–31. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.lst.8600200.

Abrego

L. J.

2014. Sacrificing Families: Navigating Laws, Labor, and Love Across Borders. Redwood City: Stanford University Press.

Alcaraz

Chiquiar

Salcedo

. 2012. “Remittances, Schooling, and Child Labor in Mexico.” Journal of Development Economics 97(1): 156–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2010.11.004.

Antman

F. M

. 2011. “The Intergenerational Effects of Paternal Migration on Schooling and Work: What Can We Learn from Children’s Time Allocations?” Journal of Development Economics 96(2): 200–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2010.11.002.

Antman

F. M

. 2012. “Gender, Educational Attainment, and the Impact of Parental Migration on Children Left Behind.” Journal of Population Economics 25(4): 1187–214. http://dx.https://doi.org/.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/10.1007/s00148-012-0423-y.

Asad

A. L.

Clair

. 2018. “Racialized Legal Status as a Social Determinant of Health.” Social Science & Medicine 199: 19–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.03.010.

Bang

Robins

J. M.

. 2005. “Doubly Robust Estimation in Missing Data and Causal Inference Models.” Biometrics: Journal of the International Biometric Society 61 (4): 962–73. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0420.2005.00377.x.

Bean

F. D.

Leach

M. A.

Brown

S. K.

Bachmeier

J. D.

Hipp

J. R.

. 2011. “The Educational Legacy of Unauthorized Migration: Comparisons Across U.S.-Immigrant Groups in How Parents’ Status Affects Their Offspring.” International Migration Review 45(2): 348–85. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-7379.2011.00851.x.

Bean

F. D.

Stevens

. 2003. America’s Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

10.

Behrman

J. R.

Gaviria

Székely

. 2001. “Intergenerational Mobility in Latin America [with Comments].” Economía 2(1): 1–44. https://doi.org/10.1353/eco.2001.0010.

11.

Binder

Woodruff

. 2002. “Inequality and Intergenerational Mobility in Schooling: The Case of Mexico.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 50 (2): 249–67. https://doi.org/10.1086/322882.

12.

Blau

P. M.

Duncan

O. Dudley

. 1967. The American Occupational Structure. New York: Free Press.

13.

Brown

S. K

. 2007. “Delayed Spatial Assimilation: Multigenerational Incorporation of the Mexican–Origin Population in Los Angeles.” City & Community 6(3): 193–209. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6040.2007.00213.x.

14.

Creighton

M. J.

Park

Teruel

G. M.

Teachman

. 2009. “The Role of Migration and Single Motherhood in Upper Secondary Education in Mexico.” Journal of Marriage and Family 71(5): 1325–39. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2009.00671.x.

15.

Donato

K. M.

Wakabayashi

Hakimzadeh

Armenta

. 2008. “Shifts in the Employment Conditions of Mexican Migrant Men and Women: The Effect of U.S. Immigration Policy.” Work and Occupations 35(4): 462–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/0730888408322859.

16.

Dreby

. 2010. Divided by Borders: Mexican Migrants and Their Children. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

17.

Dreby

. 2012. “The Burden of Deportation on Children in Mexican Immigrant Families.” Journal of Marriage and Family 74(4): 829–45. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2012.00989.x.

18.

Flores

R. D.

Schachter

. 2018. “Who Are the ‘Illegals’? The Social Construction of Illegality in the United States.” American Sociological Review 83(5): 839–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122418794635.

19.

Frank

K. A

. 2000. “Impact of a Confounding Variable on a Regression Coefficient.” Sociological Methods & Research 29(2): 147–94. https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124100029002001.

20.

Frank

K. A.

Maroulis

S. J.

Duong

M. Q.

Kelcey

B. M.

. 2013. “What Would It Take to Change an Inference? Using Rubin’s Causal Model to Interpret the Robustness of Causal Inferences.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 35(4): 437–60. https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373713493129.

21.

Frank

Min

K-S.

. 2007. “Indices of Robustness for Sample Representation.” Sociological Methodology 37: 349–92. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9531.2007.00186.x.

22.

Garip

. 2012. “Discovering Diverse Mechanisms of Migration: The Mexico-US Stream 1970–2000.” Population and Development Review 38(3): 393–433. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2012.00510.x.

23.

Garip

. 2017. On the Move: Changing Mechanisms of Mexico-U.S. Migration. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

24.

Goldsmith

P. R.

Flores-Yeffal

N. Y.

Salinas

Reese

Cruz

C. E.

. 2018. “Mexican Parent’s Undocumented Status and the Educational Attainment of the Children Left Behind.” Social Science Research 72 (May): 194–206. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2018.02.007.

25.

Gonzales

R. G

. 2011. “Learning to Be Illegal: Undocumented Youth and Shifting Legal Contexts in the Transition to Adulthood.” American Sociological Review 76(4): 602–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122411411901.

26.

Gonzales

R. G.

2016. Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

27.

Gonzales

R. G.

Ruszczyk

S. P.

. 2021. “The Legal Status Divide among the Children of Immigrants.” Daedalus 150(2): 135–49. https://doi.org/10.1162/daed_a_01851.

28.

Greenman

Hall

. 2013. “Legal Status and Educational Transitions for Mexican and Central American Immigrant Youth.” Social Forces 91(4): 1475–98. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sot040.

29.

Hagan

J. M.

Hernández-León

Demonsant

J-L.

. 2015. Skills of the “Unskilled”: Work and Mobility among Mexican Migrants. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

30.

Hagan

J. M.

Wassink

. 2016. “New Skills, New Jobs: Return Migration, Skill Transfers, and Business Formation in Mexico.” Social Problems 63(4): 513–33. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spw021.

31.

Hainmueller

. 2012. “Entropy Balancing for Causal Effects: A Multivariate Reweighting Method to Produce Balanced Samples in Observational Studies.” Political Analysis 20(1): 25–46. https://doi.org/10.1093/pan/mpr025.

32.

Hall

Greenman

Farkas

. 2010. “Legal Status and Wage Disparities for Mexican Immigrants.” Social Forces 89(2): 491–513. https://doi.org/10.1353/sof.2010.0082.

33.

Halpern-Manners

. 2011. “The Effect of Family Member Migration on Education and Work among Nonmigrant Youth in Mexico.” Demography 48(1): 73–99. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-010-0010-3.

34.

Huerta-Wong

J. E.

Burak

Grusky

D. B.

. 2018. “Is Mexico the Limiting Case? Social Mobility in the New Gilded Age.” Centro de Estudios Espinosa Yglesias. https://ceey.org.mx/is-mexico-the-limiting-case-social-mobility-in-the-new-gilded-age/.

35.

Iacus

S. M.

King

Porro

. 2011. “Multivariate Matching Methods That Are Monotonic Imbalance Bounding.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 106(493): 345–61. https://doi.org/10.1198/jasa.2011.tm09599.

36.

Iacus

S. M.

King

Porro

. 2012. “Causal Inference Without Balance Checking: Coarsened Exact Matching.” Political Analysis 20(1): 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1093/pan/mpr013.

37.

Kandel

Kao

. 2001. “The Impact of Temporary Labor Migration on Mexican Children’s Educational Aspirations and Performance.” The International Migration Review 35(4): 1205–31. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-7379.2001.tb00058.x.

38.

Kasinitz

Mollenkopf

J. H.

Waters

M. C.

Holdaway

. 2009. Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

39.

King

Nielsen

. 2019. “Why Propensity Scores Should Not Be Used for Matching.” Political Analysis 27(4): 435–54. https://doi.org/10.1017/pan.2019.11.

40.

Kreisberg

A. N

. 2019. “Starting Points: Divergent Trajectories of Labor Market Integration among U.S. Lawful Permanent Residents.” Social Forces 98 (2): 847–82. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soy128.

41.

Lahaie

Hayes

J. A.

Piper

T. Markham

Heymann

. 2009. “Work and Family Divided Across Borders: The Impact of Parental Migration on Mexican Children in Transnational Families.” Community, Work & Family 12(3): 299–312. https://doi.org/10.1080/13668800902966315.

42.

Landale

N. S.

Oropesa

R. S.

Noah

A. J.

Hillemeier

M. M.

. 2016. “Early Cognitive Skills of Mexican-Origin Children: The Roles of Parental Nativity and Legal Status.” Social Science Research 58: 198–209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2016.02.004.

43.

Lara

. 2015. “International Migration and Human Capital in Mexico: Networks or Parental Absence?” International Journal of Educational Development 41 (March): 131–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2015.02.006.

44.

Lindstrom

D. P.

Saucedo

S. G.

. 2007. “The Interrelationship Between Fertility, Family Maintenance, and Mexico-U.S. Migration.” Demographic Research 17: 821–58. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2007.17.28.

45.

. 2014. “Parental Migration and Education of Left-Behind Children: A Comparison of Two Settings.” Journal of Marriage and Family 76(5): 1082–98. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12139.

46.

Massey

D. S.

Arango

Hugo

Kouaouci

Pellegrino

E. Taylor

. 1993. “Theories of International Migration: A Review and Appraisal.” Population and Development Review 19(3): 431–66. https://doi.org/10.2307/2938462.

47.

Massey

D. S.

Aysa-Lastra

. 2011. “Social Capital and International Migration from Latin America.” International Journal of Population Research 2011 (834145): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1155/2011/834145.

48.

Massey

D. S.

Durand

Malone

N. J.

. 2002. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. https://doi.org/10.7758/9781610443821.

49.

Massey

D.S.

Durand

Pren

K.A.

. 2014. “Explaining Undocumented Migration to the U.S.” International Migration Review 48(4): 1028–61. https://doi.org/10.1111/imre.12151.

50.

Massey

D.S.

Durand

Pren

K.A.

. 2016. “Why Border Enforcement Backfired.” American Journal of Sociology 121(5): 1557–600. https://doi.org/10.1086/684200.

51.

Massey

D. S.

Espinosa

. 1997. “What's Driving U.S.-Mexico Migration? A Theoretical, Empirical, and Policy Analysis.” American Journal of Sociology 102 (4): 939–99. https://doi.org/10.1086/231037.

52.

Massey

D. S.

Gentsch

. 2014. “Undocumented Migration to the United States and the Wages of Mexican Immigrants.” International Migration Review 48(2): 482–99. https://doi.org/10.1111/imre.12065.

53.

Mckenzie

Rapoport

. 2011. “Can Migration Reduce Educational Attainment? Evidence from Mexico.” Journal of Population Economics; Heidelberg 24(4): 1331–58. http://dx.https://doi.org/.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/10.1007/s00148-010-0316-x.

54.

Menjívar

. 2006. “Liminal Legality: Salvadoran and Guatemalan Immigrants’ Lives in the United States.” The American Journal of Sociology 111(4): 999–1037. https://doi.org/10.1086/499509.

55.

Menjívar

. 2021. “The Racialization of ‘Illegality.’” Daedalus 150(2): 91–105. https://doi.org/10.1162/daed_a_01848.

56.

Menjívar

Abrego

L.J.

. 2012. “Legal Violence: Immigration Law and the Lives of Central American Immigrants.” American Journal of Sociology 117(5): 1380–421. https://doi.org/10.1086/663575.

57.

Menjívar

Cervantes

A. Gómez

Alvord

. 2018. “The Expansion of ‘Crimmigration,’ Mass Detention, and Deportation.” Sociology Compass 12(4): e12573–n/a. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12573.

58.

Menjívar

Kanstroom

. 2013. “Introduction – Immigrant ‘Illegality’: Constructions and Critiques.” In Constructing Immigrant “Illegality”: Critiques, Experiences, and Responses, edited by Menjívar

Kanstroom

, 1–34. New York: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107300408.001.

59.

“MMP.” Mexican Migration Project. Accessed December 6 2021. https://mmp.opr.princeton.edu/.

60.

Nobles

2013. “Migration and Father Absence: Shifting Family Structure in Mexico.” Demography 50(4): 1303–14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-012-0187-8.

61.

Ortmeyer

D. L.

Quinn

M.A.

. 2012. “Coyotes, Migration Duration, and Remittances.” The Journal of Developing Areas 46(2): 185–203. https://doi.org/10.1353/jda.2012.0038.

62.

Passel

J. S.

Cohn

D’V.

. 2019. “Mexicans Decline to Less than Half the U.S. Unauthorized Immigrant Population for the First Time.” Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/12/us-unauthorized-immigrant-population-2017/.

63.

Portes

Rumbaut

R. G.

. 2001. Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation. Acls Humanities E-Book. Berkeley: University of California Press. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.31535.

64.

Reardon

S. F.

2011. “The Widening Academic Achievement Gap Between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations.” In Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances, edited by Murnane

R.J.

Duncan

G.J.

. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 91–116. https://doi.org/10.7758/9781610447515.10.

65.

Ripollone

J. E.

Huybrechts

K. F.

Rothman

K. J.

Ferguson

R. E.

Franklin

J. M.

. 2020. “Evaluating the Utility of Coarsened Exact Matching for Pharmacoepidemiology Using Real and Simulated Claims Data.” American Journal of Epidemiology 189(6): 613–22. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwz268.

66.

Ross

T. R.

2016. “The Differential Effects of Parental Involvement on High School Completion and Postsecondary Attendance.” Education Policy Analysis Archives 24: 30–. https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.24.2030.

67.

Sewell

W. H.

Haller

A. O.

Portes

. 1969. “The Educational and Early Occupational Attainment Process.” American Sociological Review 34(1): 82–92. https://doi.org/10.2307/2092789.

68.

Suárez-Orozco

Yoshikawa

Teranishi

Suárez-Orozco

. 2011. “Growing Up in the Shadows: The Developmental Implications of Unauthorized Status.” Harvard Educational Review 81(3): 438–73. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.3.g23 × 203763783m75.

69.

Torche

. 2010. “Economic Crisis and Inequality of Educational Opportunity in Latin America.” Sociology of Education 83(2): 85–110. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038040710367935.

70.

Torche

. 2015. “Intergenerational Mobility and Gender in Mexico.” Social Forces 94(2): 563–87. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sov082.

71.

Urbina

D. R

. 2018. “Intergenerational Educational Mobility During Expansion Reform: Evidence from Mexico.” Population Research and Policy Review 37(3): 367–417. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-018-9466-4.

72.

Viera

J. A

. 2020. “Intergenerational Mobility among Return Migrants and Their Families: A Case Study in Mexico.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 46(19): 4104–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1515621.

73.

Waters

M. C.

Kasinitz

. 2021. “Race, Legal Status & Social Mobility.” Daedalus 150(2): 120–34. https://doi.org/10.1162/daed_a_01850.

74.

Waters

M. C.

Pineau

M. G.

. 2016. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/21746.

75.

Frank

K. A.

Maroulis

S. J.

Rosenberg

J. M.

. 2019. “Konfound: Command to Quantify Robustness of Causal Inferences.” The Stata Journal 19(3): 523–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/1536867X19874223.

76.

Yoshikawa

. 2011. Immigrants Raising Citizens: Undocumented Parents and Their Young Children. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebookbatch.PMUSE_batch:muse9781610447072.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.04 MB

Transnational Social Stratification? Legal Status of Immigrant Parents and the Educational Achievements of Mexican Children

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References

Supplementary Material