This article considers the process by which local economic news coverage influences individual evaluations of the economy. We improve on prior research by capturing a wider range of news sources (including national network news, national newspapers, local television news, and local newspapers) and connecting the effects of this coverage on individual level attitudes. We find that current person…
Although migration from Mexico to the United States is more than a century old, until recently most other countries in Latin America did not send out significant numbers of migrants to foreign destinations. Over the past thirty years, however, emigration has emerged as an important demographic force throughout the region. This article outlines trends in the volume and composition of the migrant…
The authors present a method for dividing the historical development of community migration streams into an initial period and a subsequent takeoff stage with the purpose of systemically differentiating pioneer migrants from follower migrants. The analysis is organized around five basic research questions. First, can we empirically identify a juncture point in the historical development of comm…
Since the second half of the twentieth century, studies have documented the presence of women and men among migrants to and from Latin America. This study analyzes gendered patterns of U.S. migration from a variety of nations south of the border and examines how the probabilities of migrating on a first U.S. trip shift over the life course and by legal status. Using life history data from the M…
This article deals with the issue of gender and migration in a comparative manner. It aims at identifying factors that affect the gender composition of migratory streams, including family formation and children. It compares two contrasting streams: Mexican migration to the United States, which has traditionally been male-dominated; and Paraguayan migration to Argentina, which comprises a larger…
Scholars have long recognized the impact transformative political events have had on migration patterns in individual countries, but few have extended these ideas to the current period of political transition taking place across Latin America. Through analysis of data from the Latin American Migration Project (LAMP) and the Mexican Migration Project (MMP) from across Peru, Nicaragua, and the Me…
The authors analyze the effects of structural adjustment and violence on international migration from selected countries in Latin America by estimating a series of event history models that predicted the likelihood of initial migration to the United States as a function of the murder rate, economic openness, and selected controls in the country of origin. Although several theories posit a conne…
The theory of the cumulative causation of migration posits that as migratory experience grows within a sending community, the likelihood that other community members will initiate a migratory trip increases. This diffusion is expected to vary across time and place according to differences in the mechanisms guiding this behavior. The author compares the effect of the prevalence of migratory expe…
Although Latin American migrants to the United States, particularly Mexicans, are typically portrayed as poor and uneducated, some, such as Peruvians, are disproportionately well educated compared to those who never left their countries. This article examines who emigrates and why by comparing migrants’ selectivity from Mexico and Peru. Using the Peruvian data of the Latin American Migration Pr…
Scholars have questioned whether international migrants from Latin America are able to transfer their levels of education into the U.S. labor market. In this article, the author examines the data from the Latin American Migration Project for Guatemala, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua to observe the ability of each of the immigrant groups to convert prior education into occupational attainment…
Despite their high out-migration rate, Puerto Ricans in the United States send less money than Dominicans and Mexicans to their relatives back home. One explanation for the low level of private transfers of Puerto Ricans is that public disbursements, especially for nutritional assistance, housing subsidies, and educational grants, may well be the safety net in Puerto Rico that remittances serve…
The authors examine the impact of remittances on the schooling of children in various Haitian communities with a high incidence of out-migration. After addressing the endogeneity of remittance receipt, they find that, in some communities, remittances raise school attendance for all children regardless of whether they have household members abroad. However, in other communities, this effect is o…
This article draws on data from the Mexican Migration Project and the Latin American Migration Project to study patterns of occupational mobility among male migrant household heads who have returned from the United States to Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Puerto Rico. In general, migration to the United States increases the likelihood of upward mobility relative to nonmigrants if it begins …
This article compares the transition into legal permanent residence (LPR) of Mexicans, Dominicans, and Nicaraguans. Dominicans had the highest likelihood of obtaining such residence, mostly sponsored by parents and spouses. Mexicans had the lowest LPR transition rates and presented sharp gender differentials in modes: women were found to be mostly legalized through husbands, while men were spon…
Available data have consistently pointed up the failure of U.S. policies to reduce undocumented migration from Latin America. To shed light on the reasons for this failure, we estimated a series of dynamic models of undocumented entry into and exit from the United States. Our estimates suggest that undocumented migration is grounded more in mechanisms posited by social capital theory and the ne…
The measurement of socio-economic gender inequality has not received much attention from the development literature despite its great relevance and important policy implications. In this article we present two new indices to measure gender inequalities that overcome some of the limitations inherent in the UNDP gender-related indices and other indices presented in the literature. The proposed ne…
In post-conflict contexts characterized by large-scale migration and increasing levels of legal pluralism, customary land tenure risks being deployed as a tool of ethno-territorialization in which displaced communities are denied return and secure land rights. This thesis will be illustrated through a case study of the Indonesian island of Ambon where a recognition of customary tenure — also ca…
The concept of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) is gaining increasing attention among scholars as well as conservation and development practitioners. The premises of this innovative conservation approach are appealing: private land users, usually poorly motivated to protect nature on their land, will do so if they receive payments from environmental service buyers which cover part of the l…
The issue of child labour in the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) economy is attracting significant attention worldwide. This article critically examines this 'problem' in the context of sub-Saharan Africa, where a lack of formal sector employment opportunities and/or the need to provide financial support to their impoverished families has led tens of thousands of children to take up work…
Is the analysis of patron–client networks still important to the understanding of developing country politics or has it now been overtaken by a focus on 'social capital'? Drawing on seventeen country studies of the political environment for livestock policy in poor countries, this article concludes that although the nature of patronage has changed significantly, it remains highly relevant to th…