page_title: Demographics of Mexico
section_title: Emigration from Mexico
hierarchical_section_title: Demographics of Mexico / International migration / Emigration from Mexico
caption_attribution_description: Edmonton Oilers forward Raffi Torres during a game on October 21, 2006.
context_page_description: With a population of about 126 million in 2019, Mexico is the 10th most populated country in the world. It is the most populous Spanish-speaking country and the third-most populous in the Americas after the United States and Brazil. Throughout most of the twentieth century Mexico's population was characterized by rapid growth. Although this tendency has been reversed and average annual population growth over the last five years was less than 1%, the demographic transition is still in progress, and Mexico still has a large cohort of youths. The most populous city in the country is the capital, Mexico City, with a population of 8.9 million, and its metropolitan area is also the most populated with 20.1 million. Approximately 50% of the population lives in one of the 55 large metropolitan areas in the country. In total, about 78.84% of the population of the country lives in urban areas, meaning that only 21.16% live in rural areas.
  The Census Inegi in Mexico is the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía. The National Population Council, is an institution under the Secretary of the Interior in charge of the analysis and research of population dynamics.
context_section_description: The national net migration rate of Mexico is negative, estimated at -1.8 migrants per 1,000 population as of 2017.
  The great majority of Mexican emigrants have moved to the United States of America. This migration phenomenon is not new, but it has been a defining feature in the relationship of both countries for most of the twentieth century. During World Wars I and II, the United States government approved the recruitment of Mexican workers in their territory, and tolerated unauthorized migration in order to obtain additional farm- and industrial-workers to fill the necessary spots vacated by the population in war, and to supply the increase in the demand for labor. Nonetheless, the United States unilaterally ended the wartime programs - in part as a result of arguments from labor and from civil-rights groups.
  In spite of that, emigration of Mexicans continued throughout the rest of the 20th century at varying rates. It grew significantly during the 1990s and continued to do so in the first years of the 2000s. In fact, it has been estimated that 37% of all Mexican immigrants to the United States in the 20th century arrived during the 1990s. In 2000 approximately 20 million American residents identified themselves as either Mexican, Mexican-Americans or of Mexican origin, making "Mexican" the sixth-most cited ancestry of all US residents.
  In 2000 the INEGI estimated that about eight million Mexican-born people, which then was equivalent to 8.7% of the population of Mexico itself, lived in the United States of America. In that year, the Mexican states sending the greatest numbers of emigrants to the United States were Jalisco (170,793), Michoacán (165,502), and Guanajuato (163,338); the total number of Mexican emigrants to the United States in 2000, both legal and illegal, was estimated at 1,569,157; the great majority of these were men.  Approximately 30% of emigrants come from rural communities.  In 2000, 260,650 emigrants returned to Mexico.  According to the Pew Hispanic Center in 2006, an estimated ten percent of all Mexican citizens lived in the United States.  The population of Mexican immigrants residing illegally in the United States fell from around seven million in 2007 to about 6.1 million in 2011.  This trajectory has been linked to the economic downturn which started in 2008 and which reduced available jobs, and to the introduction of stricter immigration laws in many States.  According to the Pew Hispanic Center the total number of Mexican-born people had stagnated in 2010 and then began to fall.
  After the Mexican-American community, Mexican Canadians are the second-largest group of emigrant Mexicans, with a population of over 50,000.  A significant but unknown number of mestizos of Mexican descent migrated to the Philippines during the era of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, when the Philippines was a territory under the rule of Mexico city.  Mexicans live throughout Latin America as well as in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates.
caption: Raffi Torres while playing for the Edmonton Oilers. Torres was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada to Juan and Anna Torres. His father emigrated from Mexico City with his family in the early 1970s.
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