How local community context shapes labour market re-entry and resource mobilisation among return migrants: an examination of rural and urban communities in Mexico

ABSTRACT

Recent estimates suggest that nearly half of all international migrants return to their communities of origin within five years of emigration. Motivated by high levels of return migration, scholars are increasingly investigating the ways in which return migrants mobilise resources they acquire abroad, such as human and financial capital, to achieve economic mobility upon return. Yet, resource mobilisation and labour market reintegration unfold in heterogeneous community contexts. To understand the labour market reintegration of return migrants in various local contexts, we draw on an eight-year study that included interviews with 153 Mexican returnees to examine how labour market reintegration and resource mobilisation vary across three types of communities: urban, urban-adjacent, and rural. U.S.-Mexico migration is the largest binational return flow in the world, providing a unique opportunity to explore variations in the reintegration experiences of returnees. We find that labour market reintegration and resource mobilisation are contextually embedded processes that respond to the social, economic, and spatial features of migrants’ origin communities. Following our analysis, we extend three testable hypotheses that can guide future research on international migration and return.

KEYWORDS:

• Return migration
• resource mobilisation
• economic mobility
• ethnography
• Mexico

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For recent examinations of labour market reintegration among deported migrants, see Hagan, Wassink, and Castro (2019) on Mexico and David (2017) on the Maghreb region in Africa.

2 Logistical and budgetary constraints precluded us from collecting parallel longitudinal data in these rural communities.

3 We use pseudonyms for all localities and respondents. Localities, which are nested within municipalities, are the smallest units of geographical aggregation in the Mexican Census.

4 We used Google Maps to estimate drive times.

5 These motivations could reflect attempts to recoup opportunities lost during Mexico's economic restructuring in the 1990s (Hernández-León 2008).

6 Except for an isolated instance of several English-language teachers we encountered during exploratory fieldwork, we found no evidence of English-language transfers in rural communities.

7 We received similar accounts from three of the other four urban-adjacent returnees who planned to apply U.S. skills to their work upon return. Indeed, another returnee also planned to start a restaurant in San Jacinto using skills learned in the United States, but called off the venture citing the same challenges as Juan.

8 Entry-wages in auto manufacturing range from 1200 to 1800 pesos a week ($60–90), comparable to informal sector earnings.

9 Lengthy commutes over unpaved roads impose additional costs. Multiple respondents reported significant injuries from scooter accidents.

10 Our respondents invested savings in homes, automobiles, and consumption. These investments enhance living standards, but do not provide long-term economic mobility.

11 H2-visas are temporary work visas that allow entry into the United States for less than one year to workers in low-skill occupations.

12 Other studies suggest that when highly educated migrants return to urban areas, they also benefit from new skills, which can lead to occupational mobility and increased leadership roles in large firms (Williams and Baláž 2005).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development: [Grant Number P2CHD047879]; National Science Foundation: [Grant Number 1808888].