A Guide to the Mexican and Latin American Migration Projects: Methodology, Datasets, and Selected Results

• In Event: 3201 - Research Funding Opportunities and Data Resources Presentations: Session II

Abstract

This presentation is a guide to the Mexican Migration Project (MMP) and to the Latin American Migration Project (LAMP), which were created in 1982 and 1998, respectively, by an interdisciplinary team of researchers to further our understanding of the complex migration flows originating from Mexico and Latin America to the United States.
The MMP and LAMP randomly sample households in communities located throughout the country of interest. We gather social, demographic, and economic information on the households and its members. For household-heads, we compile a year-by-year history of U.S. Migration, by administering a detailed series of questions that focus on employment, earnings, and use of social services during their last trip to the U.S.
Responses are converted to electronic format and compiled to form five unique data sets. PERS file contains socioeconomic information for each household member, including basic measures of domestic and international migration. MIG file contains detailed border-crossing, measures of migratory experience of family of origin, extended family and friends, and the social and economic characteristics of the last U.S. trip for each household head. HOUSE file contains measures of household composition and amenities, as well as data about businesses, land, property, vehicles, and livestock. LIFE and SPOUSE files are labor histories, and each record represents a person-year detailing labor force, family/household formation, and cumulative U.S. experience. In addition, we offer the community file with measures of infrastructure, social resources, public services, labor force participation, and education.
Currently, the MMP contains 170 communities, while the LAMP includes multiple communities surveyed in Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

Authors

• Karen A. Pren, Princeton University

• Ricardo Mora Téllez, Visiting Postdoctoral Research Fellow