Abstract
Recent commentaries on migration integration suggest that researchers focus more on cities than nation states and include considerations of political economy, societal inequality and shifts in production. This article analyses how different aspects of wages of export industry (EI) migrant and borderlander workers in Tijuana, Mexico and Tangiers-Tetouan, Morocco limit their socioeconomic integration and lead to their greater identification with foreign standards, stimulating emigration northward. Using the new theory of migration systems, real and indirect wages are found to be major system elements initiating and deepening inequality, and providing for comparisons between natives, foreigners and expatriates, creating relative deprivation. System dynamics, such as border characteristics, insecurity, and currency markets uniquely contribute to inadequate settlement south of the US border. While EI wages are shown to poorly integrate migrant workers structurally in both cities, employment there supports incorporation into northern countries. The paper contributes to migration integration research by adding to the few studies which use wages as an indicator of integration and by focusing on low income regions instead of high income countries which constitute most previous research.
Highlights
Recent commentaries on migration integration suggest that researchers focus more on cities than nation states and include considerations of political economy, societal inequality and shifts in production
This work focuses on how export industry (EI) wages incorporate internal migrants socio-economically, but we observe how EI employment may lead to cultural adaptation to the countries where capital originates
I and many of my co-workers emigrated because of the wages. (...) I was working in one maquiladora when there was a change and the (...) owner wanted to pay us workers a little more and the government there wouldn’t let them
Summary
Recent commentaries on migration integration suggest that researchers focus more on cities than nation states and include considerations of political economy, societal inequality and shifts in production. Using the new theory of migration systems, real and indirect wages are found to be major system elements initiating and deepening inequality, and providing for comparisons between natives, foreigners and expatriates, creating relative deprivation. System dynamics, such as border characteristics, insecurity, and currency markets uniquely contribute to inadequate settlement south of the US border. Mexican export processors, called maquiladoras or maquilas, began in the mid-sixties Both Mexico and Morocco are labor frontier countries that have undergone enough development permitting human mobility, but do not provide sufficient economic opportunity, resulting in internal and international migration (Stalker 2000). We ask how companies which give support for migration documents as a paid benefit contribute to legal integration abroad which may lead to emigration
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