Mapping Gender and Migration in Sociological Scholarship: Is It Segregation or Integration?

A review of the sociological research about gender and migration shows the substantial ways in which gender fundamentally organizes the social relations and structures influencing the causes and consequences of migration. Yet, although a significant sociological research has emerged on gender and migration in the last three decades, studies are not evenly distributed across the discipline. In this article, we map the recent intellectual history of gender and migration in the field of sociology and then systematically assess the extent to which studies on engendering migration have appeared in four widely read journals of sociology (American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Demography, and Social Forces). We follow with a discussion of these studies, and in our conclusions, we consider how future gender and migration scholarship in sociology might evolve more equitably.     

Socio-Economic Indicators for Performance Evaluation and Quality Assessment: Statistical Methods and Applications

Social Indicators Research -     

The Cat and Mouse Game at the Mexico‐U.S. Border: Gendered Patterns and Recent Shifts1

This paper provides new insights into the process of undocumented border crossing by examining both men and women in the process. We investigate differences in the ways in which men and women make their way across the well‐guarded Mexico‐U.S. border, and the extent to which men and women by the end of the 1990s were similar to, or different from, their counterparts who crossed before 1986 and the implementation of immigration policy designed to reduce undocumented migration. We find substantial differences in how men and women crossed the border without legal documents and in their chances of being apprehended. Our analysis makes clear that shifts in U.S. immigration policy after 1986 have led to women's greater reliance on the assistance of paid smugglers to cross without documents but men were more likely to cross alone. Moreover, immediately after 1986, women on first U.S. trips faced higher risks of being apprehended compared to women who migrated in the early 1980s, but men faced lower risks. After accumulating some U.S. experience, however, both women and men faced lower risks of being detected after 1986 compared to earlier in that decade.     

Shifts in the employment outcomes among Mexican migrants to the United States, 1976–2009

Although studies have examined the impact of U.S. immigration policy shifts in the 1980s and 1990s on the employment outcomes of migrants, scholars have paid less attention to how the federal government's shifting approach to worksite enforcement has transformed the conditions in which Mexican migrants work. Consistent with previous research, we find a worsening of conditions for both unauthorized and legal Mexican migrants in the years following the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) and that unauthorized status is associated with more unfavorable workplace conditions relative to legal immigrants. However, in the first decade of the 21st century, we also find that unauthorized immigrants’ employment outcomes more closely resemble those of legal immigrants now than in the past, suggesting a dramatic shift in the ways that employers treat unauthorized immigrants on the job. This convergence between authorized and unauthorized migrants is consistent with federal policies and practices related to workplace enforcement.     

The Consequences of Caregiving: Effects on Women’s Employment and Earnings

Caregiving to family members comprises a major part of familial obligations in the United States. Informal caregiving is unevenly distributed in society, with women performing most of the work and bearing the burden of its costs. This paper addresses the cost dimension of informal caregiving to family members by examining whether and how it penalizes women’s employment. Drawing data from the 1987 and 1992 National Survey of Families and Households, we examine whether and how caregiving transitions affect changes in women’s labor force participation and the implications of this caregiving transitions for their earnings. We calculate how these effects vary for demographically different groups of women: those older and younger, with and without high levels of education, and married and not married. Our findings reveal that for most women, the initiation of caregiving led to a substantial reduction in their weekly hours worked and annual earnings. However, the effects were different for various subgroups of women: those older, with fewer skills, and more competing roles paid substantial costs if they began caregiving between 1987 and 1992.     

Migration,Social Networks,and Child Health in Mexican Families

This paper examines the consequences of parental migratory strategies for children in three types of Mexican families: those living with their migrant parents in the United States, those living with parents who migrated and returned to Mexico, and those living in Mexico with parents who have never migrated. Using data on 804 children from the Health and Migration Survey (HMS), we found significant differences in children's health across the three types of families. Results also revealed robust effects on child health of the size of immediate and extended social networks and migration experience after controlling for potential mediators such as mother's general health, receipt of social support, and child's age and sex. Findings suggest that social networks and migration affect children in complex ways, offering health benefits to those with migrant parents in U.S. households but not to those living with parents who migrated in the past and returned to Mexico.     

Recent Immigrant Settlement in the Nonmetropolitan United States: Evidence from Internal Census Data*

Abstract In the 1990s, studies have documented widespread growth of immigrants in U.S. communities not known as common destinations in the past. This trend has fueled population growth in some nonmetropolitan areas and offset population decline in other areas. In this paper, we examine the implications of recent foreign born in-migration for rural America. Our focus is on a collection of 59 nonmetropolitan counties where growth in foreign born stock offset declines in U.S. native population and resulted in increased local population by 2000. To understand these nonmetropolitan offset counties, we use confidential Census Bureau data that offer us the detailed geography and larger sample size needed to closely examine spatial shifts in the foreign born population, especially those recently arrived. Our findings illustrate dramatic compositional shifts in the populations of these areas, and suggest new demographic complexity in nonmetropolitan areas in the 21^st century.     

Migradollars and mortality: The effects of migration on infant survival in Mexico

We apply multilevel methods to data from Mexico to examine how village migration patterns affect infant survival outcomes in origins. We argue that migration is a cumulative process with varying health effects at different stages of its progression, and test several related hypotheses. Findings suggest higher rates of infant mortality in communities experiencing intense U.S. migration. However, two factors diminish the disruptive effects of migration: migradollars, or migrant remittances to villages, and the institutionalization of migration over time. Mortality risks are low when remittances are high and decrease as migration becomes increasingly salient to livelihoods of communities. Together, the findings indicate eventual benefits to all infants, irrespective of household migration experience, as a result of the development of social and economic processes related to U.S. migration.