Lifecourse, Autonomy, and the Migration of Children from Mexico to the United States

• In Event: 195 - Section on Sociology of Population Paper Session. Immigration, Nativity, and Family Dynamics

Abstract

Children comprise a large share of immigrants to the United States, yet there are few empirical studies of child migration. We argue that migration scholarship should incorporate children into agentic models of migration, as has been done historically for women and forced migrants. Doing so reveals the unique ways that autonomy structures migration across the child lifecourse. We develop these insights in an analysis of the determinants of child migration to the United States using the Mexican Family Life Survey, nationally representative data from Mexico that tracked households over time and across space, including across the Mexico-U.S. border. We find that children under the age of five are dependent migrants, whose migrations are best predicted by the location of their parents. The migration of primary school-aged children is closely associated with measures of community level risk, suggesting that the migration of these young children reflects concerns regarding where to raise children, which may be apart from migrant parents. By contrast, the migration of secondary school-aged children is similar to that of adults, showing patterns consistent with expectations from economic and social theories of migration, although we also find a strong influence of a youth culture of migration for adolescents, suggesting that for older children migration becomes a rite of passage and a means of transitioning to adulthood in certain communities. This study demonstrates how the meanings and process of child migration vary by age, reflecting the growing autonomy and changing concerns of children and their parents across the child lifecourse.

Authors

• Erin R. Hamilton, The University of California, Davis

• Maryann Bylander, Lewis and Clark College