WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- The vast majority of undocumented
migrants from Mexico were gainfully employed before they left for the United
States, according to a Pew Hispanic Center report released today. The report
suggests that failure to find work at home does not seem to be the primary
reason that the estimated 6.3 million undocumented migrants from Mexico have
come to the U.S.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050228/PHCLOGO )
Once they arrive and pass through a brief transition period, migrants have
little trouble finding work, with family and social networks playing an
important role in aiding the process, the study found. Migrants easily make
transitions into new jobs, even though most find themselves working in
industries that are new to them. Many are paid at minimum-wage levels or
below.
The demand for labor appears to play a strong role in shaping the economic
destiny of Mexican migrants. Migrants are concentrated in a handful of
industries -- agriculture, hospitality, construction and manufacturing. There
are also signs of change in the characteristics of migrants and the nature of
the demand for them. The more recently arrived and younger migrants from
Mexico are better educated than their predecessors, less likely to be farm
workers and more likely to have a background in other industries, such as
commerce and sales. They increasingly come from a greater variety of regions
in Mexico and make homes in new Mexican-migrant settlement areas in the U.S.,
such as New York and Raleigh, N.C.
These findings emerge from the Center's Survey of Mexican Migrants, which
provides detailed information on 4,836 Mexican migrants who completed a 12-
page questionnaire as they were applying for a matricula consular, an identity
document issued by Mexican diplomatic missions. The survey was not a random
sample of foreign-born Mexicans but one designed to generate the maximum
number of observations of migrants seeking further documentation of their
identity. Fieldwork was conducted in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Atlanta,
Dallas, Raleigh and Fresno, from July 12, 2004, to Jan. 28, 2005.
While respondents were not asked directly to specify their immigration status,
most are believed to lack authorization to work in the U.S.
The Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization, is a project
of the Pew Research Center and is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
CONTACT: Angela Luben of Pew Hispanic Center, +1-202-419-3606.
SOURCE Pew Hispanic Center
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