Property Redistribution and Migration: The Effects of Mexico’s Agrarian Reform on Emigration to the US, 1920-1949

• In Event: 20862 - Section on International Migration Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 2: Migration Aspirations and Decision-Making

Abstract

How does property redistribution shape migration? I examine this question using the case of agrarian reform in Mexico, through which groups of farmers were granted collective property rights to agricultural land. Combining data on Mexican agrarian reform with new data on Mexican emigration to the U.S. during the early twentieth century, I asses both the direct and indirect community-level effects of redistribution on emigration flows. Preliminary results show that counties that directly received land grants subsequently sent more emigrants to the U.S. compared to counties that did not receive land grants. Indirect exposure to property redistribution—that is, communities near other communities that received land grants—consistently lowered the magnitude of subsequent emigration. I also find evidence that agrarian reform altered the composition of emigration flows: those who arrived in the U.S. from communities that recently received land grants were older and more likely to be female, while those coming from communities that did not recently receive land grants were more likely to be fist-time migrants, more likely to be accompanies by others, and more likely to be intending a permanent stay in the United States.

Author

• Sarah Elizabeth Farr, University of Michigan