Pew Hispanic Center Report: Unemployment Plays Small Role in Spurring Mexican Migration to U.S.

“The vast majority of undocumented migrants from Mexico were gainfully employed before they left for the United States, according to a Pew Hispanic Center report released today. The report suggests that failure to find work at home does not seem to be the primary reason that the estimated 6.3 million undocumented migrants from Mexico have come to the U.S.

Once they arrive and pass through a brief transition period, migrants have little trouble finding work, with family and social networks playing an important role in aiding the process, the study found. Migrants easily make transitions into new jobs, even though most find themselves working in industries that are new to them. Many are paid at minimum-wage levels or below.

The demand for labor appears to play a strong role in shaping the economic destiny of Mexican migrants. Migrants are concentrated in a handful of industries — agriculture, hospitality, construction and manufacturing. There are also signs of change in the characteristics of migrants and the nature of the demand for them. The more recently arrived and younger migrants from Mexico are better educated than their predecessors, less likely to be farm workers and more likely to have a background in other industries, such as commerce and sales. They increasingly come from a greater variety of regions in Mexico and make homes in new Mexican-migrant settlement areas in the U.S., such as New York and Raleigh, N.C.

These findings emerge from the Center’s Survey of Mexican Migrants, which provides detailed information on 4,836 Mexican migrants who completed a 12- page questionnaire as they were applying for a matricula consular, an identity document issued by Mexican diplomatic missions. The survey was not a random sample of foreign-born Mexicans but one designed to generate the maximum number of observations of migrants seeking further documentation of their identity. Fieldwork was conducted in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Raleigh and Fresno, from July 12, 2004, to Jan. 28, 2005. While respondents were not asked directly to specify their immigration status, most are believed to lack authorization to work in the U.S. “

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