Educational Expansion and Migrant Selection: Evidence from Mexico–United States Migration

• In Event: International Migration Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 14. Drivers of migration

Abstract

Abstract
This paper examines how the educational profiles and geographic destinations of Mexican migrants to the United States have changed amid declining migration flows and substantial educational expansion in Mexico. Historically, Mexican migrants were disproportionately drawn from lower educational strata and concentrated in low-skill sectors and in traditional destination regions across the U.S. South. In this study, we ask whether more recent migrants are more educated than earlier cohorts, and whether any increase in education levels reflects absolute improvements driven by educational expansion in Mexico, or more competitive migrant selection mechanisms relative to Mexico’s educational distribution. Pulling from the Mexican 2010 and 2015 Censuses, and American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (2011-2015, and 2016-2020), we provide comparisons across migrant cohort (arrived in 2011-2015 vs. 2016-2020), migrants' absolute education level, and migrants’ relative rank within origin-country age-, period-, and sex- specific education distributions. We then assess whether these factors--absolute education, relative education, or migration cohort--are associated with dispersion into new U.S. destinations for migrants. This study provides rare insight into two novel and important areas in migration research: (1) migrant selection relative to characteristics of their country of origin, and (2) migrant stratification and geographic distribution upon arrival in the U.S. As educational expansion accelerates across the Americas and migration streams diversify, this study provides a template for analyzing how changing origin-country educational distributions reshape migrant selection and stratification.

Author

• Adriana Scanteianu, University of Pennsylvania