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This article will address immigration as a psychosocial event and will describe the different stages of the immigration process, when immigration becomes traumatic, and how each immigration stage can place vulnerable Latin American families at high risk for traumatic stress. It will explore pre-migration experiences and the factors bringing young families to cross the United States--Mexico border. The authors discuss (a) the long- and short-term effects of family separations on young children and their caregivers and (b) trauma- and diversity-informed interventions targeted at increasing safety, empowerment, and hope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"This paper studies the differences in earnings between Mexican legal and illegal immigrants in the United States. The analysis includes a cross-sectional examination of the wage differences between legal and undocumented workers as well as a longitudinal analysis examining the impact of legalization on the earnings of previously-undocumented workers. It is shown that the average hourly wage rate of male Mexican legal immigrants in the United States was 41.8% higher than that of undocumented workers while female legal immigrants earned 40.8% more.", (excerpt)

"The aim of this paper is to argue the importance of considering ¿the household' in analyses of gender and rural-urban migration, both in respect of how it shapes the gender selectivity of migrant flows and how, in turn, the latter contributes to household diversity across rural and urban areas.... [It] examines the impacts of gender differentiated demographic mobility on contemporary household forms in rural and urban areas including reference to case study evidence from my own research in Mexico, Costa Rica and the Philippines.", (excerpt)

"Our aims in this paper are to broaden explanation of remittance expenditures and to evaluate the positive contributions of remittances, return migrants, or circulating sojourners. Specifically focusing on the situation in ¿home' communities, we illustrate the multifaceted consequences of remittances and migration, emphasizing positive nonmonetary and social impacts." Data are from ethnographic research carried out in 1992-1993 in Santa Ana del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico., (excerpt)

"This paper uses an economic index to describe the hierarchical structure of the national settlement system and describes the changes among the sixties, eighties and nineties. We found great territorial changes for the first period. The conclusions proposed are that there is a decentralisation at [the] national level, but at the same time, there is a centralisation at [the] regional level." (SUMMARY IN ENG), (excerpt)

"This paper reports some results of analyzing migratory dynamics in the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City, which ever since the 1970-1980 decade have affected other regions of the country, mainly the State of Mexico. The analysis describes different types and modes of migratory movement: metropolitan (from Mexico City), inter-county (within each state), and interstate (between Mexico City and other states). Data was provided by the XI Population and Household Census of 1990." (SUMMARY IN ENG), (excerpt)

"This paper begins by reviewing some conceptual frameworks for the study of female mortality and indicates some of its application problems. Next it presents results of mortality of women in reproductive-age classified by age, causes of death, and socio-demographic traits (marital status, schooling, and occupation) for ten states [in Mexico] differentiated according to level of development and well-being. The data suggests differences according to age, marital status, and schooling. Finally, testing of the mutual independence and partial independence hypotheses indicates that age, marital status, and schooling correlate to the degree of development of each state." (SUMMARY IN ENG), (excerpt)

"This study uses a new source of data to assess trends and patterns of female migration from Mexico. Data were collected from migrants interviewed in ten Mexican communities from 1987 through 1990, as well as from outmigrants from those communities who were later located in the United States. The first part of the analysis examines changes in migrant behavior throughout the 1980s by estimating trends in the probability of first-time and repeat migration and by assessing the impact of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) on these trends.... The study then considers the determinants of female Mexican-U.S. migration by examining whether and how women's recent moves reflect their personal characteristics, the resources in their households, or a process of family reunification." This paper was originally presented at the 1992 Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America., (excerpt)

"This paper presents the results of exploratory efforts to examine the determinants of the structure of households in urban areas of Mexico, focusing on those of women with young children.... The empirical analysis uses two cross-sectional national surveys of Mexico, the 'Encuesta Nacional Demografica' 1982 and the 'Encuesta Nacional de Fecundidad y Salud' 1987...." (SUMMARY IN ENG), (excerpt)

"The purpose of this paper is to assess urban research in Mexico during the 1980s.... The study is divided into three sections: 1) continuing themes; 2) new themes on urban issues; [and] 3) state policies regarding urban issues. The author notes that in the 1980s, research was conducted for the purpose of analyzing urban realities more explicitly.... She also offers a description of studies that attempt to link state policies, the actors involved, and their impact (or lack of it) on urbanization processes, and discusses the regulatory functions carried out by the state." (SUMMARY IN ENG), (excerpt)

"This paper examines migration to Oaxaca City, an intermediate city in southern Mexico, and describes the differences between migrants and non-migrants. The data show that migrants to Oaxaca City tend to come from district capitals rather than more rural municipios. Once in Oaxaca, migrants are not as different from non-migrants as is commonly asserted in the literature.", (excerpt)

"In this paper, the author analyzes the evolution of migration to Mexico City based on information generated by the National Survey on Migration to Urban Areas.... The findings support the hypothesis that there has been a decrease in the intensity of in-migration towards capital. The rural origin of the migrants prevails; the majority of these are young people coming from the states closest to the city, with low levels of schooling. An increase is observed in out-migration from Mexico City to other major cities in the country...." (SUMMARY IN ENG), (excerpt)

This paper describes and analyzes the main characteristics identified in seasonal Guatemalan workers who migrate every year to coffee plantations in the Sosonusco region in the state of Chiapas. Stress is placed on the disadvantageous working and living conditions of said population in their original areas of residence, as a necessary referent for understanding the nature and function of seasonal migratory work as a part of a social sector whose living conditions are marked by poverty. The data utilized for the analysis were obtained through a survey carried out in the 1986-1987 harvest season, in which 591 migrants working in 13 ejido or privately-owned productive units in the municipalities of Tapachula and Union Juarez were interviewed.

Changes in the relationship between population factors and the development process in Mexico from 1940 to the present are reviewed. The authors show how the development that occurred up to about 1970 both absorbed and encouraged rapid population growth. They then describe how the emergence of problems concerning this relationship led to the development of a population policy during the 1970s. "The paper then takes up the implementation of that policy and the determinants of the fertility decline that took place afterwards, and closes with a brief review of the implications that demographic considerations have for Mexico's future." (SUMMARY IN ENG), (excerpt)

This paper analyzes the migration phenomenon within a framework that treats migration movements as continuous loops, from the country of origin to the destination and back. Significant social-psychological factors at each step of the loop process contribute to the development of migration streams along a predictable pattern. The general model of the loop process shows that the migration stream is 1st sparked when labor is recruited from less developed countries for work in developed industrialized countries. Once the social process of migration has begun, it tends to acquire a self-feeding character. Social and economic change in sending and receiving societies brought about by migration make further migration more likely. The case of the Mexico-US-Mexico loop process is analyzed. This case illustrates the effects of socioeconomic stratification that occurs in communities where the migration loop process reaches a certain level of maturity. The majority of a town's population may become committed to migration as a way of life. Eventually, wealth becomes concentrated in the hands of those that are most able to migrate. Thus, migrants may become a new elite segment of rural populations that were once relatively homogenous societies. Further research of the migration loop process should be conducted. At least in the case of Mexico, the socioeconomic stratification in the villages and towns acting as sources of migration loops with destinations in the US have significant internal economic, social, and political implications.

"This paper describes the historical evolution of five populations and analyzes the circumstances under which data on maternal and paternal orphanhood of couples at the moment of marriage were collected and compiled." The data, which concern historical populations in Mexico, Chile, Peru, Brazil, and Argentina, are used to construct life tables for male and female adults. Consideration is given to mortality differentials by sex. (summary in ENG), (excerpt)

"This paper tests for the dynamic causal connection between real income per capita and the birth rate for a subset of developing countries. These countries are Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, and Uruguay. Our empirical findings show that, for the historical period under review, in several countries real income per capita affected the birth rate. Virtually no evidence is found to support the hypothesis that the birth rate affected real income per capita.", (excerpt)

This paper examines Mexican regional patterns. Different regional definitions are utilized to examine in-/out-migration patterns in 4 different periods: 1) 1979-1980, 2) 1975-1979, 3) prior to 1975, and 4) lifetime. 5 regional definitions previously used to delineate state level Mexican regions were compared to new regions by a maximum likelihood clustering technique. Previously defined regions do not compare with the empirically delineated regions developed by the cluster analysis. A cluster analysis of in-/out-migration patterns suggests the following: 1) distinct in-/out-migration patterns for both short- and long-term migration patterns, 2) a central region consisting of Mexico and the Federal District having its own distinct regional characteristics for both in-/out-migration patterns, particularly intraregional migration among those 2 states exceeds any other interregional migration patterns, and 3) the unique role played by Jalisco in mediating long-term inflows prior to 1975, and since 1975, out-migration from the same state. Previous research rarely identified the Central region consisting of Mexico and the Federal District. Using net migration for interregional migration analysis may possibly be misleading since immigration and out-migration phenomena show distinct patterns of geographic mobility at the state level, and such regional differences are consistent for the 4 migration periods. A careful analysis accounting for both distinct migration patterns in the Central region and different patterns in in-/out-migration are necessary to obtain an understanding of regional migration patterns in Mexico.

"The paper examines the validity of current theories of intra-city migration, subjecting those theories to the test of explaining new data collected in a total of 13 low-income settlements in three Latin American cities: Bogota, Mexico City, and Valencia, Venezuela. The study focuses attention upon the principal reception points for migrants; the location of previous place of residence for contemporary barrio dwellers; [and] the tenure and dwelling characteristics of previous places of residence. The authors conclude that residential patterns in Latin American cities are less the outcome of migrant choice, as some theories argue, and more the product of constraints imposed upon the land and housing markets.", (excerpt)