Mexican Immigration and Self-Selection: New Evidence from the 2000 Mexican Census

42 Pages Posted: 16 Aug 2005

See all articles by Pablo Ibarraran

Pablo Ibarraran

Inter-American Development Bank (IDB); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Darren H. Lubotsky

University of Illinois at Chicago

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: May 2005

Abstract

We use data from the 2000 Mexican Census to examine how the education and socioeconomic status of Mexican immigrants to the United States compares to that of non-migrants in Mexico. Our primary conclusion is that migrants tend to be less educated than non-migrants. This finding is consistent with the idea that the return to education is higher in Mexico than in the United States, and thus the wage gain to migrating is proportionately smaller for high-educated Mexicans than it is for lower-educated Mexicans. We also find that the degree of negative selection of migrants is stronger in Mexican counties that have a higher return to education.

Keywords: Migration, Self-selection, Mexico, Roy model

JEL Classification: J6, F2

Suggested Citation

Ibarraran, Pablo and Lubotsky, Darren H., Mexican Immigration and Self-Selection: New Evidence from the 2000 Mexican Census (May 2005). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=765484 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.765484

Pablo Ibarraran

Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) ( email )

1300 New York Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20577
United States

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Darren H. Lubotsky (Contact Author)

University of Illinois at Chicago ( email )

University Hall Room 724
Chicago, IL 60607
United States

HOME PAGE: http://lubotsky.people.uic.edu/

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