Immigration Statistics A Story of Neglect (1985) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix C: The Settlement Process Among Mexican Migrants to the United States: New Methods and Findings
Appendix C: The Settlement Process Among Mexican Migrants to the United States: New Methods and Findings
Pages 255-292
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From page 255... ...
The approach is the ethnosurvey, which combines representative survey sampling with ethnography to generate data on social processes operating at the community level. These data indicate that as migrants accumulate experience in the United States, a variety of social and economic ties are formed that progressively increase the likelihood of U.S.
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From page 256... ...
This method combines intens ive ethnographic study of particular communities with representative survey sampling in order to generate ethnographically informed quantitative data on social processes operating at the local level. Strictly speaking, the ethnosurvey is
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From page 257... ...
migrant experience, the crucial factor in the settlement process. If social and economic ties to the United States, and hence the propensity to settle, develop slowly over time, and if there has been a recent and dramatic upswing in Mexican migration, then a high rate of return migration today would not be surprising, even given an underlying crescive settlement process.
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From page 258... ...
This paper uses ethnosurvey data to study the settlement process among migrants from four Mexican communities. It examines the formation of social and economic ties to the United States over time and explores how the social context of migration changes systematically with progressive exposure to U.S.
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From page 259... ...
Detailed maps showing the location of households in each community were prepared during August 1982, and from these the sampling frames were constructed. Interviewing of sample households began in November 1982 and ended in February 1983, with most being conducted during the months of December and January, the months when most seasonal migrants have returned home from the United States.
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From page 260... ...
THE SOCIAL PROCESS OF INTEGRATION IN THE UNITED STATES An important module of the ethnosurvey questionnaire asked migrants about experiences on their most recent trip to the United States. The results
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From page 261... ...
By this definition, 66 percent of the 440 migrants were of rural origin and 34 percent were of urban origin. A common view of Mexican migrants is that they are predominantly young men traveling to the United States without family dependents (Cornelius, 1978: 30~.
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From page 262... ...
Looking at the marginals, we see the basis for the common generalization that Mexican migrants are predominantly males traveling without dependents. The vast majority (84 percent of rural migrants and 77 percent of urban migrants)
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From page 263... ...
A crucial step in the settlement process, particularly from the migrant's point of view, is the acquisition of legal papers. Most Mexican migrants to the United States began going north without documents or as Braceros, depending on the era in which they first left.
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From page 264... ...
A topic of widespread interest to many in the United States is the use of social services by Mexican migrants. Without controlling for the duration of U.S.
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From page 265... ...
Among agricultural workers, however, the percentage earning less than minimum wage falls with up to 15 years of experience but then increases, an apparently anomalous result that deserves special comment. It probably reflects a selection process operating among migrant farm workers.
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From page 266... ...
Among nonagricultural workers, the percentage with a checking account rises from 11 percent to 15 percent, and the percentage with a savings account rises from 11 percent to 29 percent. In recognition of the intense interest that has been displayed in the use of public services by undocumented migrants, we present Table C-4 as a short digression from the main theme of the paper.
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From page 267... ...
But even while legal migrants use social services more intensively than undocumented migrants, in absolute teems the usage is relatively modest, compared with native service-dependent groups (see North, 1983~. In summary, this section has shown how the social context of Mexican migration changes with the accumulation of experience in the United States.
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From page 268... ...
The increase in months worked combines with a rising wage rate to almost quintuple the annual gross income of nonagricultural workers from the first to the last experience ~nterva . In every experience interval the gross income of nonagricultural workers is considerably larger than that of farm workers.
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From page 269... ...
However, as with farm workers this quantity rises rapidly and steadily thereafter, to 76 percent in the highest experience interval. These figures provide tangible evidence of a crescive settlement process operating over the course of migrants' careers.
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From page 270... ...
The Qx functions for a double decrement table defined by settlement and censoring are presented in columns 3 and 5 of Table C-7. Most censoring occurs in the first few experience intervals.
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From page 271... ...
settlement is .53 for urban migrants, compared with .42 for rural migrants. However, from 10 to 24 years, the cumulative probabilities of settlement are quite close and do not depart again until the last experience intervals, when the few urban migrants who still have not settled experience a high probability of doing so.
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From page 272... ...
Since Rodgers (1982) has warned of biases that may result if the identification restriction is arbitrary, we first computed separate life tables for age, period, and cohort and examined them to see what r restrictions might legitimately be made.
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From page 273... ...
migration are quite different in Mexican rural and urban areas. In rural areas, the dramatic rise in out-migration from 1960 to the present probably reflects the growing acuteness of Mexico's agricultural land shortage (Hewitt de Alcantara, 1976; Russell, 1977~; while in urban areas, periods of likely out-migration reflect labor dislocation brought about by capital substitution in industry.
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From page 274... ...
Table C-9 undertakes a double decrement life table analysis of migration progression probabilities, analogous to parity progression ratios in fertility analysis, in order to answer this question. The table begins with all migrants who ever made a trip to the United States.
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From page 275... ...
However, life tables can just as easily be prepared to compute settlement probabilities by number of calendar years since migration began, combining the continuation and settlement steps into a single table. When this is done, we find that 32 percent of rural migrants and 41 percent of urban migrants settle in the United States within 10 years of their first U.S.
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From page 276... ...
And the more people who settle, the heavier use of social services such as schools and medical facilities, the higher the concentration of Hispanics in cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, and the greater the inst itut tonal support for further migrat ion. A figure of 756,000 undocumented Mexican migrants entering the United States during the 1970s is probably too low for our purposes.
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From page 277... ...
1982 Interviewing undocumented immigrants: methodological reflections based on fieldwork in Mexico and the U.S. International Migration Review 16:378-411.
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From page 278... ...
1978 Patterns of adaptation among households of U.S.-bound migrants from Michoacan, Mexico. International Migration Review 12:485-501.
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From page 279... ...
Mullan, B.P. 1984 Occupational Mobility of Mexican Migrants to the United States.
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From page 280... ...
International Migration Review 14:475-91. Rhoades, R.E.
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From page 281... ...
Shadow, R.D. 19 79 Dif ferent ial out-migrat ion: a comparison of internal and international migration from Villa Guerrero, Jalisco (Mexico)
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From page 282... ...
MIGRANT EXPERIENCE FIGURE C-1 Cumulative probability of settlement in the United States by total years of U.S. migrant experience and rural/urban origin.
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From page 283... ...
lx) FIGURE C-3 Probabi ~ ity of making an add it tonal trip to the United States and the probability of making x trips by rural/urban origin.
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From page 284... ...
groups Pcrc~ta~ge: Chicano friend 14.8 28.9 45.2 58.3 58.334.6 Black friend 7.4 11.1 23.8 8.3 25.013.7 Ang10 friend 11.1 20.0 38.1 33.3 62.526.9 Latino Priced 7.4 -27.8 31~0 20.8 - 54.225.6 Number of migra-nts 66 121 49 27 26289 Urban Origin : Fami ly and Home Ties Percentage: Spouse in U.S.
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From page 285... ...
schools Member of athletic club Member of social club Percentage ever receiving: Unemployment Food stamps Welfare Social security Medical services Number of migrants Urban Origin: Percentage: Nonagricultural workers With legal papers English language abilitya Percentage: With child in U.S. schools Member of athletic club Member of social club Percentage ever receiving: Unemployment Food stamps Welfare Social security Medical services Number of migrants 9.1 30.6 1.5 5.0 0.1 0.2 46.9 10.2 1.2 7.6 9.1 16.4 6.6 9.5 20.8 1.6 3.4 8.3 44.4 44.4 2.0 37.O 23.1 7.7 12.7 8.6 24.4 40.0 0.0 2.2 0.0 12.0 0.0 2.2 o.o 4.0 0.0 3.2 0.0 4.0 22.2 35.5 69.0 64.0 66 121 49 27 60.0 13.6 0.5 13.3 15.9 2.3 4.9 7.3 2.4 0.0 24.2 45 80.9 25.5 1.2 10.6 25.5 4.3 15.8 2.4 0.0 5.3 34.2 47 65.6 25.0 1.4 21.9 40.6 3.1 25.0 7.1 3.6 7.1 60.7 32 100.0 41.7 1.9 33.3 33.3 0.0 50.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 66.7 12 61.5 69.2 2.4 69.2 16.0 16.0 56.0 16.0 12.0 28.0 80.0 26 80.0 73.3 2.6 53.3 64.3 7.1 50.0 14.3 28.6 7.1 85.7 15 32.5 14.6 0.8 18.0 12.7 5.4 20.5 3.8 2.5 4.6 46.0 289 72.9 28.0 1.2 19.9 30.2 3.4 20.2 6.2 4.7 3.9 44.6 151 aEnglish language ability: 0-Doesn't speak or understand English; 1=Doesn't speak but understands some; 2=Doesn't speak but understands well; Bespeaks and understands some; bespeaks and understands well.
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From page 290... ...
. N Qx N Qx Rural Origin: o 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 So Urban Origin: o 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 271 148 99 77 57 50 39 32 27 20 18 15 12 1 1 8 6 150 79 61 48 38 31 28 23 20 18 16 1 1 10 4 2 o 13 13 12 6 1 1 6 5 7 2 3 3 1 3 2 o 14 10 8 6 5 3 2 2 5 1 6 2 .000 .088 .131 .156 .105 .220 .154 .156 .259 .100 .167 .200 .083 .273 .250 .000 .177 .164 .167 .158 .097 .179 .130 .100 .1 1 1 .313 .091 .600 .500 .500 Associated Single Decrement Table for Settlement dX qX 123 36 9 8 1 o o o o o o o o 71 4 3 2 1 o o o o o o o o o o .454 .243 .091 .104 .018 .000 .026 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .473 .051 .049 .042 .026 .000 .000 .000 · 000 .000 .000 .000 .000 ..
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From page 291... ...
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From page 292... ...
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