US-Born Children in the US-Mexico Migration System

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Social demographic models addressing the effects of immigration typically focus on the settlement and adaptation processes of different immigrant groups. Empirical evidence on the migration behavior of the US's dominant immigrant-contributing country, Mexico, indicates that a more complex process must be understood. Because return and repeat migration is so prevalent, the processes of Mexican migration demand an understanding that extends to the emigration and return migration of US-born children of Mexican-born migrants. The very large growth in numbers of such second-generation immigrant children raises questions as fundamental as to what extent has there been or will there be a transformation of the Mexico-US process from one of sojourning labor migration to settling family migration. The objectives of this study are first to estimate the prevalence of emigration and return migration to the US throughout childhood and adolescence; and second to understand how education of mother and child are associated with this migration. Where migration is associated with separation of mother and child, this is further explored. US birth registrations identifying Mexican-born mothers and US and Mexican 1990 and 2000 census micro-data are used together to estimate a two-region migration model for US-born male and female children of Mexican-born women, and to compare migration and education relationships over the decades of the 1980s and 1990s. US birth registrations into the 2000s are used with the models of childhood migration and development estimated for the 1980s and 1990s to understand the sources of new changes to the migration and education process of US-born children in the US-Mexico migration system. Differences in educational attainment of these US-born children according to whether they stay in the US or return to Mexico during childhood are explored, as is the relationship of mother's educational attainment and age. In this way, the inter-generational education association is studied as a complex process involving not only direct inter- generational educational associations but also indirectly through the intervening process of international migration. The study contributes to developing a better understanding the future impact of Mexican immigration and to a fuller understanding of the processes of emigrant selection and family disruption that are needed to understand the health consequences for children of Mexican migrant experience in the US.