Contextualizing Mexican Migrants' Educational Attainment: Selectivity Across Contexts in Mexico

Po-Chun Huang , University of California, Davis
Erin R. Hamilton, University of California, Davis

The debate on whether Mexican immigrants are positively or negatively selected on education has been limited by studying immigrants in data collected only from the sending or the destination country. Using nationally representative data from Mexico that tracked migrants to the United States prospectively, we examine the educational selectivity of Mexicans who immigrated permanently to the United States from 2002 to 2005. We find that studies relying reports of migration by remaining household members and proxy substitution of migration education under-estimate migrant selectivity. Migrant men are positively selected from households and municipalities but (slightly) negatively selected from the national educational distribution. Migrant women are positively selected at all levels. Differences in selectivity by size of place, as well as when considering the local or national context, suggest that the answer of whether immigrants are positively or negatively selected on education depends on the context considered.

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 Presented in Session 225. International Migration