The theoretical and empirical literature generally regards international migration as producing a cycle of dependency and stunted development in sending communities. Most migrants' earnings are spent on consumption; few funds are channeled into productive investment. We argue that this view is misleading because it ignores the conditions under which productive investment is likely to be possible and profitable. We analyze the determinants of migrants' savings and remittance decisions, using variables defined at the individual, household, community, and macroeconomic levels. We identify the conditions under which U.S. earnings are repatriated to Mexico as remittances and savings, and indicate the factors leading to their productive investment.

Findings from the 2000 US Census indicate high rates of Hispanic population increase beyond urban areas and traditional immigrant-receiving states. The diversity of new destinations raises questions about forces attracting migrants to rural areas and links between economic structural change and Hispanic population growth. Our conceptual framework applies dual labor market theory to the meat processing industry, a sector whose growing Hispanic labor force offers an illustrative case study for analyzing how labor demand influences demographic change. We document the industry's consolidation, concentration, increased demand for low-skilled labor, and changing labor force composition over three decades. We then position meat processing within a broader analysis that models nonmetropolitan county Hispanic population growth between 1980 and 2000 as a function of changes in industrial sector employment share and nonmetro county economic and demographic indicators. We find that growth in meat processing employment exhibits the largest positive coefficient increase in nonmetro Hispanic population growth over two decades and the largest impact of all sectors by 2000. Copyright 2005 The Population Council, Inc..

Despite their importance to women's empowerment and migrant adaptation more generally, the social and cultural processes that determine how gender relations and expectations evolve during the process of migration remain poorly understood. In this article, data from a survey conducted in Durham, North Carolina and four sending communities in Mexico are used to examine how the structures of labor, power, and emotional attachments within the family vary by migration and U.S. residency, women's human capital endowments, household characteristics, and social support. Using both quantitative and qualitative information, the main finding of the study is that the association between migration and gender relations is not uniform across different gender dimensions. The reconstruction of gender relations within the family at the place of destination is a dynamic process in which some elements brought from communities of origin are discarded, others are modified, and still others are reinforced. Results challenge the expectation that migrant women easily incorporate the behavior patterns and cultural values of the United States and illustrate the importance of selective assimilation for understanding the diversity of changes in gender relations that accompany migration.

"Economic arguments, quantitative data, and ethnographic case studies are presented to counter popular misconceptions about international labor migration and its economic consequences in Mexico. The prevailing view is that Mexico-U.S. migration discourages autonomous economic growth within Mexico, at both the local and national levels, and that it promotes economic dependency. However, results estimated from a multiplier model suggest that the inflow of migradollars stimulates economic activity, both directly and indirectly, and that it leads to significantly higher levels of employment, investment, and income within specific communities and the nation as a whole. The annual arrival of around $2 billion migradollars generates economic activity that accounts for 10 percent of Mexico's output and 3 percent of its Gross Domestic Product."

In this article, I demonstrate that the apparently much higher fertility of Hispanic/Mexican women in the United States is almost exclusively the product of period estimates obtained for immigrant women and that period measures of immigrant fertility suffer from three serious sources of bias that together significantly overstate fertility levels: difficulties in estimating the size of immigrant groups; the tendency for migration to occur at a particular stage in life; and, most importantly, the tendency for women to have a birth soon after migration. When these sources of bias are taken into consideration, the fertility of native Hispanic/Mexican women is very close to replacement level. In addition, the completed fertility of immigrant women in the United States is dramatically lower than the level obtained from period calculations. Findings are consistent with classical theories of immigrant assimilation but are a striking departure from the patterns found in previous studies and published statistics. The main implication is that without a significant change in immigration levels, current projections based on the premise of high Hispanic fertility are likely to considerably exaggerate Hispanic population growth, its impact on the ethno-racial profile of the country, and its potential to counteract population aging.