Files
Abstract
The supply of immigrant workers from Mexico is critical to both agricultural and
non-agricultural sectors in the United States. Approximately one half of all Mexican
immigrants are females who typically are employed in positions that have minimal legal
status requirements, e.g., domestic services and clerical and agricultural jobs. In the past
two decades, the United States implemented policy reforms motivated in large part by the
desire to curtail Mexico-to-U.S. migration. Despite the large female share and differences
in the sector of employment of female and male Mexican immigrants, there has been no
effort, to our knowledge, to formally test for gender and employment sector differences
in the impact of policy shocks on migrant flows. This paper utilizes data from the 2003
Mexico National Rural Household Survey to econometrically test the effects of U.S.
immigration and trade reforms on the gender and employment sector-destination of rural
Mexico-to-U.S. migrants. Findings indicate that U.S. immigration and trade policies are
both gender and employment-sector specific. Female migration is more sensitive than
male migration to immigration reforms and other policy shocks. We also find evidence
that past migration by females has little effect on male migration, and vice versa.