Internal and international migration in Mexico: 1995–2000

Abstract

Using micro data from Mexico and US 2000 population censuses and following a multi-choice variant of Roy's (1951) model, this article pools into one model the determinants of internal and international migration in México, while paying explicit attention to the potential problem of self-selection. The results reveal that ignoring multiple destinations in the migration decision might lead to erroneous inferences about the determinants of migration and the type of selection. After controlling for wage differences, the results suggest that single adult men with low schooling levels tend to migrate to the US while married women and men with higher levels of schooling tend to migrate within Mexico. We also found that there are strong differences between domestic and international social networks.