Mixtecs are hired both by farm labor contractors and directly by growers. Average wages did not differ significantly by type of employer, but net incomes were higher for Mixtecs who were hired directly by growers, because they were more likely to be provided with free housing while they worked for the grower, and were less likely to be charged for daily transportation to work. The majority of Mixtecs are unaccompanied men of prime working age. Sixty percent obtained immigration documents through the SAW program of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. Only 11 percent of the Mixtecs interviewed were women, but this probably represents a bias in the survey because women were more reluctant to be interviewed.
Ethnographic information suggests a high labor force participation rate for the Mixtec women.
As with other migrant groups, a settlement process seems to be occurring. Some Mixtec families live full-time in the United States, and return to Mexico only for brief visits. They have children who were born and attend school in the United States, and who speak Spanish, English, and only occasionally Mixtec as well. The survey data do not provide a direct means of measuring the effect of the entry of Mixtecs on the wages and employment of other farmworkers because they included only a cross-section of Mixtecs during a single time period. The ethnographic material did show some evidence of displacement of mestizo Mexicans, as growers fired or did not hire back mestizos once they learned to recruit the Mixtecs by tapping into a particular village migrant social network.