Occupational Mobility among Returned Migrants in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

This article draws on data from the Mexican Migration Project and the Latin American Migration Project to study patterns of occupational mobility among male migrant household heads who have returned from the United States to Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Puerto Rico. In general, migration to the United States increases the likelihood of upward mobility relative to nonmigrants if it begins at a relatively young age (before twenty-five), particularly in Costa Rica and Guatemala, where mobility is generally more fluid. In all countries, but especially Mexico, mobility prospects depend on a migrant’s own characteristics and the characteristics of the U.S. trip, as well the context of return. Education generally enhances occupational achievement upon return, as does greater U.S. experience and the holding of a nonmanual U.S. job, but taking more trips and having legal U.S. documents are generally associated with lower odds of occupational achievement at home.

The productivity of return migrants: the case of China’s “Sea Turtles”

“…Carletto and Kilic (2011) show that returned Albanians with past experience in Italy and countries further afield have a higher likelihood of moving up the career ladder. Cobo et al (2010) present similar results for Latin American males who have education and non-menial work experience in the US. For the wage-employed returnees, Barrett and Goggin (2010) and Co et al (2000) find a positive wage premium for the Irish and the Hungarian women.…”

Las consecuencias de quedarse y de volver en el empleo de los uruguayos que migraron a España

“…También es cierto que si se compara el desempleo de los llegados desde España en los últimos cuatro años con el de quienes regresaron hace más de cuatro años, se verifica que el tiempo transcurrido puede revertir esa aparente vulnerabilidad inicial de los retornados y posicionarlos incluso mejor que los no migrantes. Por último, se aprecia un descenso en los niveles de actividad tras el retorno que avalaría los argumentos a favor de que algunos retornados optan por esperar el momento o la oportunidad indicada para entrar a la fuerza de trabajo (Koolhaas, 2015;Cobo, Giorguli y Alba, 2010;Lindstrom, 2013).…”

The Effect of Migration Experience on Occupational Mobility in Estonia

“…Campos and Dabušinskas 2009), an ordered probit model whereby the degree of mobility in the occupational ranking is modelled (Carletto and Kilic 2011) or a multinomial logit model (e.g. for upward mobility, downward mobility and staying in the same occupation, Cobo et al 2010). In our main specification, our dependent variables were the dummies for upward and downward occupational mobility.…”

“…Socioeconomic motivations and determinants of return migration have been extensively analysed in the literature (e.g. Borjas and Bratsberg, 1996;Dustmann 2003;Prelipseanu 2010, Cobo et al 2010, although most studies primarily focused on the decision of migrants to return to their home country and the amount of time spent abroad. Wage premiums among temporary 2 We use temporary and return migration as synonyms.…”

“…Ilahi 1999) or looked on occupations based on sectors (Kupets 2011). Given the low number of earlier studies, Cobo et al (2010), using a multinomial logit model, looked at the occupational choice of Latin American return migrants to the US by distinguishing between 5 categories of occupations; these were nonmanual high qualification, non-manual low qualification, manual high qualification, manual low qualification, unemployed. They found that return migration enhanced upward occupational mobility especially at a young age.…”