ASGEOGRAPHYREVISION
MIGRATION
5.4 CASESTUDYMIGRATION
MEXICOTOUSA

LABOURANDMASSMIGRATIONUNDEREMPLOYMENT
Labour migration is migration from one country to another when the
primary purpose is to seek employment.
Underemployment is a situation where people are working less than
they would like to and need to in order to earn a reasonable living.
Mass migration refers to the migration of a large group of people from
one geographical area to another.
Guest worker is a foreigner who is permitted to work in a country on a
temporary basis; for example, a farm labourer.
Maquiladoras are assembly plants in Mexico, especially along the
border between the United States and Mexico, to which foreign
materials and parts are shipped and from which the finished products
are returned to the original market.

ASSIMILATIONTOTALFERTILITYRATEMIGRANTCULTURE
Assimilation means to become integrated into mainstream society.
Total fertility rate is the number of children an average women would have
assuming that she lives her full reproductive lifetime.
Ethnography is a type of case study that focuses upon the cultural patterns
that develop within a group.
Remittances are a transfer of money by a foreign worker to his home
country.
Time–space distanciation is the stretching of social systems across space and
time.
Migrant culture is the attitudes and values of a particular society to the
process of migration.

SOURCEAREARECEIVINGAREA
Source area is the region from which a group of migrants originates.
Receiving area is the region to which migrants move.

TOPICSUMMARY1
Migration from Mexico to the USA has been one of the world’s major
migration streams over the past 40 years. This has been primarily a labour
migration.
Clear push and pull factors can be identified to explain this migration.
In the early part of the twentieth century the American government allowed
the recruitment of Mexican workers as guest workers.
There was very little illegal migration from Mexico to the USA until the early
1980s, which was stimulated by a combination of high population growth in
Mexico and the economic crisis of the early 1980s.
During this period Mexican migrants spread out more widely in the USA than
ever before.

MEXICANIMMIGRANTS19661999

TOPICSUMMARY2
Mexican workers have found employment mainly in agriculture,
construction, various manufacturing industries and in low paid service jobs.
As attitudes in the USA hardened against illegal immigrants, Congress passed
the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in 1986.
Labour migration continued at a high rate even after economic and
employment growth in Mexico improved in the late 1990s.
By 2006 there were an estimated 12 million Mexican-born people living in
the US. This amounted to around 11 per cent of living people born in Mexico.
There is a very strong concentration of the US-Mexican population in the
four states along the Mexican border; California, Arizona, New Mexico and
Texas. The concentration is particularly strong in California and Texas.

DISTRIBUTIONOFMEXICANPOPULATIONINLAAREA

TOPICSUMMARY3
Mexican culture has had a sustained impact on many areas in the US,
particularly urban areas close to the border.
The Mexican population in the United States has undergone a process of
assimilation over time.
Labour supply pressures for emigration from Mexico peaked in the late
1990s and are likely to fall in coming years.
All but a very small fraction of emigration from Mexico is to the US.
The recent global economic crisis saw unemployment in the US rise to about
10 per cent, the worst job situation for 25 years. Immigration always
becomes a more sensitive issue in times of high unemployment.
A migrant culture has become established in many Mexican communities.

DECLININGEMIGRATIONFROMMEXICO