Open AccessA Tale of Two Contexts: U.S. Migration and the Labor Force Trajectories of Mexican Women
Author(s) -
Flippen Chenoa A.,
Parrado Emilio A.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
international migration review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.109
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1747-7379
pISSN - 0197-9183
DOI - 10.1111/imre.12156
Subject(s) - context (archaeology) , residence , demographic economics , work (physics) , marital status , life course approach , economics , political science , geography , sociology , labour economics , demography , population , psychology , social psychology , mechanical engineering , archaeology , engineering
Even though women have long participated in Mexico–U.S. migration studies assessing the labor market implications of international mobility for women are rare. Especially lacking are studies that follow a life‐course approach and compare employment trajectories across contexts and in connection with other transitions. Using life‐history data collected in Mexico and the U.S., we explore the impact of migration on women's employment, focusing on how the determinants of employment vary across contexts. We show that U.S. residence eliminates or even reverses the employment returns to education found in Mexico and that the constraints imposed on women's work by marriage are actually stronger in the U.S. context. We also explicitly connect migration to other life‐course events, documenting how the impact of context varies not only by marital status but also by where women's unions were formed.