Beyond Networks: Health, Crime, and Migration in Mexico

Jose N Martinez

doi:10.1155/2014/971739

Abstract

Two rounds of a longitudinal survey from Mexico, representative at the national, urban, rural, and regional level, are used to examine the determinants of local, domestic, and international migration. Aside from the typical covariates in the migration decision, this study considers health conditions, crime, and individual’s perspectives on life as explanatory variables. Coefficient estimates for most health variables do not offer significant support to the healthy migrant hypothesis. In terms of crime, the results suggest that females respond to worsening safety conditions in Mexico by migrating domestically, but not abroad. The decision to migrate domestically or abroad for males is not statistically correlated with increases in crime. Overall, having access to international migration networks continues to play a significant role in the decision to migrate to the US.

Highlights

Migration within the country and abroad has been a persistently important phenomenon in Mexico
The results show that females with heart conditions are statistically more likely to move in general, but not necessarily to another municipality, another state, or abroad
One potential explanation for these results might be that crime and feelings of insecurity are widely generalized in Mexican communities, so their residents might feel there is no point in migrating, especially within the same locality, municipality, or state

Summary

Introduction

Migration within the country and abroad has been a persistently important phenomenon in Mexico. Until the middle of the 1960s, migration within Mexico was characterized by a flow of migrants mainly from poor rural areas of the center and south regions towards Mexico City and to other large urban areas across the country These flows were motivated mainly by higher employment opportunities and better wages. In the 1990s and driven in part by Mexico’s drastic shift toward globalization due to the implementation of NAFTA, migration flows towards large cities along the US border intensified along with migration to the US This was prevalent for rural communities that relied heavily on basic crops production and were unable to compete with international markets [3]

Methods

Results

Conclusion