Emilio A. Parrado

International Migration and Development in Mexican Communities

The theoretical and empirical literature generally regards international migration as producing a cycle of dependency and stunted development in sending communities. Most migrants’ earnings are spent on consumption; few funds are channeled into productive investment. We argue that this view is misleading because it ignores the conditions under which productive investment is likely to be possible and profitable. We analyze the determinants of migrants’ savings and remittance decisions, using variables defined at the individual, household, community, and macroeconomic levels. We identify the conditions under which U.S. earnings are repatriated to Mexico as remittances and savings, and indicate the factors leading to their productive investment.

Migradollars and development: a reconsideration of the Mexican case.

Economic arguments, quantitative data, and ethnographic case studies are presented to counter popular misconceptions about international labor migration and its economic consequences in Mexico. The prevailing view is that Mexico-U.S. migration discourages autonomous economic growth within Mexico, at both the local and national levels, and that it promotes economic dependency. However, results estimated from a multiplier model suggest that the inflow of migradollars stimulates economic activity, both directly and indirectly, and that it leads to significantly higher levels of employment, investment, and income within specific communities and the nation as a whole. The annual arrival of around

Changing race : Latinos, the census, and the history of ethnicity in the United States

2 billion migradollars generates economic activity that accounts for 10 percent of Mexicos output and 3 percent of its Gross Domestic Product.

Migradollars: The remittances and savings of Mexican migrants to the USA

Latinos are the fastest growing population group in the United States.Through their language and popular music Latinos are making their mark on American culture as never before. As the United States becomes Latinized, how will Latinos fit into Americas divided racial landscape and how will they define their own racial and ethnic identity? Through strikingly original historical analysis, extensive personal interviews and a careful examination of census data, Clara E. Rodriguez shows that Latino identity is surprisingly fluid, situation-dependent, and constantly changing. She illustrates how the way Latinos are defining themselves, and refusing to define themselves, represents a powerful challenge to Americas system of racial classification and American racism.

Migration and Gender among Mexican Women

In this article, we use new data from 22 communities to estimate the total flow of dollars back into Mexico as a result of migration to the United States. Our estimates include remittances sent while working abroad and money brought back on return trips; they incorporate transfers by temporary as well as permanent US workers; they include money transferred by legal as well as illegal migrants; and they include funds sent or brought by household heads as well as other family members. We estimate that US

Intergenerational Fertility Among Hispanic Women: New Evidence of Immigrant Assimilation

24 million in ‘migradollars’ flowed into the sample communities during the survey year. In some places, the flow of US money equalled or exceeded the value of locally earned income. When generalized to all of Western Mexico, our sample suggests a regional flow of US

Migration and Relationship Power Among Mexican Women

1.5 billion; and when our data are inserted into an estimation model developed earlier by Lozano Ascencio, we estimate the total flow at US

Participatory Survey Research Integrating Community Collaboration and Quantitative Methods for the Study of Gender and HIV Risks Among Hispanic Migrants

2 billion for Mexico as a whole. Although most of this money was spent on consumption, investments in productive activities were significant, and directly or indirectly, we conclude that migradollars play an extremely important role in Mexican economic production.

How High is Hispanic/Mexican Fertility in the United States? Immigration and Tempo Considerations

Despite their importance to womens empowerment and migrant adaptation more generally, the social and cultural processes that determine how gender relations and expectations evolve during the process of migration remain poorly understood. In this article, data from a survey conducted in Durham, North Carolina and four sending communities in Mexico are used to examine how the structures of labor, power, and emotional attachments within the family vary by migration and U.S. residency, womens human capital endowments, household characteristics, and social support. Using both quantitative and qualitative information, the main finding of the study is that the association between migration and gender relations is not uniform across different gender dimensions. The reconstruction of gender relations within the family at the place of destination is a dynamic process in which some elements brought from communities of origin are discarded, others are modified, and still others are reinforced. Results challenge the expectation that migrant women easily incorporate the behavior patterns and cultural values of the United States and illustrate the importance of selective assimilation for understanding the diversity of changes in gender relations that accompany migration.

Religious attendance and mortality: Implications for the black-white mortality crossover

In recent decades, rapid growth of the U.S. Hispanic population has raised concerns about immigrant adaptation, including fertility. Empirical research suggests that Hispanics, especially Mexicans, might not be following the historical European pattern of rapid intergenerational fertility decline (and convergence toward native levels). If confirmed, continued high Hispanic fertility could indicate a broader lack of assimilation into mainstream American society. In this paper, we reexamine the issue of Hispanic and Mexican fertility using an approach that combines biological and immigrant generations to more closely approximate a comparison of immigrant women with those of their daughters’ and granddaughters’ generation. Contrary to cross-sectional results, our new analyses show that Hispanic and Mexican fertility is converging with that of whites, and that it is similarly responsive to period conditions and to women’s level of education. In addition, we employ a mathematical simulation to illustrate the conditions under which cross-sectional analyses can produce misleading results. Finally, we discuss the import of the fertility convergence we document for debates about immigrant assimilation.