A COMPARISON OF MEXICAN MIGRANT REMITTANCES ACROSS U.S. REGIONS

I. INTRODUCTION According to Bartel (1989), migrants in the United States have historically clustered in a few regions and have thus been more geographically concentrated than U.S. natives. However, according to Frey (2002), Passel and Suro (2005), and others, the big immigration news of the 1990s was the dispersion of migrants across the United States. Frey (2002) documents a dispersion of foreign-born residents away from the traditional gateways, a trend that includes both new migrants (those who migrated over the 1990-2000 decade) and secondary migrants (those who arrived in the United States prior to 1990). According to Durand, Massey, and Charvet (2000), Card and Lewis (2007), and Durand, Massey, and Capoferro (2005), this dispersion is particularly relevant for Mexican migrants across the United States. Approximately 85% of all Mexican migrant workers resided in California, Texas, and Illinois in 1990; by 2000, only 68% were in those states. (1) As a result of this dispersion, many communities across the United States have experienced unusually large increases in the number of Mexican migrants living in their area. Table 1 provides the growth rates of the Mexican migrant population in each U.S. region between 1990 and 2000; the six regions are defined in Table 2. (2) The Southeast region of the United States has experienced a 640% increase in Mexican migrants during this period, while the Northeast and Mountain regions have absorbed 301% and 242% more migrants, respectively. These movements dwarf the more traditional migrant destinations of the Pacific and South Central regions, which experienced a 66% and a 116% increase, respectively, during the same period. Nonetheless, the Pacific and West Central regions still accommodate more Mexican migrants in total numbers. But regions with the largest growth in Mexican migrants have little experience with Mexican migration in general, given their small stock of Mexicans in 1990. This has led to new challenges in these areas. (3) TABLE 1 Mexican Migrants in U.S. Regions 1990 2000 Growth (%) Northeast 70,959 284,570 301 Southeast 103,064 762,286 640 Mountain 286,357 980,681 242 Midwest 343,524 1,004,717 192 South Central 909,484 1,967,748 116 Pacific 2,511,574 4,160,672 66 United States 4,224,744 9,161,419 117 Source: 1990 and 2000 Census data. Along with the geographic dispersion of Mexican migrants across the United States, there has been a dramatic increase in remittances to Mexico since 1990. According to the World Bank's World Development Indicators, total remittances into Mexico in 1980 were $1.34 billion in 2000 dollars (or 0.33% of gross domestic product [GDP]) and $15.4 billion in 2004 (2.46% of GDP), a 1050% increase. In fact, much of the increase of total remittances into Mexico has occurred since the late 1990s (Balderas, 2005). While part of this increase is likely due to improvements in the accounting of remittance flows, it is possible that other factors are contributing to this trend. At the household level, Mexican migrants remit a significant amount of their U.S. income back to their families and communities in Mexico (Durand et al., 1996; Mas-sey and Parrado, 1994). According to a comprehensive study of Mexican remittances by Amuedo-Dorantes, Bansak, and Pozo (2005), more than 70% of Mexican migrant household heads remit during their migration experience, and the amount they remit is nontrivial, averaging more than $450/mo (in 2000 dollars) for those who remit. In this paper, we compare both the likelihood of remitting and the amount remitted by Mexican migrant households living in different U.S. regions. We build on the empirical literature that examines the factors associated with remittances, including Lucas and Stark (1985); Funkhouser (1995); Brown (1997); Menjivar et al. …