The changing profile of Mexican migrants to the United States: New evidence from California and Mexico

Using recent data from southern California and Mexico, we challenge the not ion that the demographic profile of Mexican migrants to the United States s ince 1970 has remained constant. We find that more recent cohorts of migran ts are more likely to settle permanently in the United States, to have high er proportions of females, to be younger, to have more education, to be inc reasingly likely to originate in southern Mexico and the Mexico City metrop olitan area, and to be increasingly likely to depart from urban areas withi n Mexico. Although we find no direct evidence that the legalization program s mandated by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 has led to a s tronger propensity to settle permanently in the United States, logistic reg ression analyses demonstrate the importance of the other three main explana tory factors suggested by Wayne Cornelius in 1992: economic crisis in Mexic o, the changing character of U.S. demand for labor, and social networks.