Ebb & Flow: Economic Precursors of Mexican Migration

The most common factor, historically, which has stimulated and motivated the flow of human populations from a developing state to a developed state is the response to economic fluctuations and expansions. It is part and parcel of our contemporary world of global integration. For the purposes of this research paper I will assume that the primary consideration for Mexican populations and individuals migrating to the United States is economic. To be sure, political, cultural and psychological factors are at play when considering the entire picture of population migration, however, I aim to focus on the economic precursors of Mexico (push) and the United States (pull) that make migration feasible and even desirable for people in marginalized and impoverished situations.

I take the stance that Mexican works do not want to leave their home for opportunities, rather they need to migrate, both internally and internationally, to find work to attain the necessities of life. In this section, I will look at the economic precursors that “push” citizens of Mexico to migrate to the U.S. I will touch briefly on population growth, adjustment in land distribution, increased urbanization and the realities of changing trade policy.

Mexico has exhibited a pattern of a society in transitional modernization with a lack of continuity between rapid population growth and the expansion of rural and urban economic opportunities (Jenkins 1997:186). The sharp increase in population is not due to increased fertility rather to the decrease in mortality due to changes in diet and medical technology. Beneficial innovations in medicine have resulted in an increase in able workers in both rural and urban environments. Economic opportunities, while growing, simply have not tracked with the growth in population. Population increases plus stagnating or slowly improving opportunities equals unemployment. In Mexico’s case, rates of unemployment are substantial. This lack of continuity translates to increased migration pressures.

A rise in population has compounded the existing complexity of large-scale land reform policy. Arable land distribution and the structure of rural Mexico have moved from public to private hands. Over the last 50 years, governmental policies have favored private landholdings and thus concentrated arable lands. The decline of the ejidos system, and the growth of consolidated, privately owned arable land has dramatically increased the number of landless rural workers (Jenkins 1997:187). Furthermore, the privatization of land has attracted capital investment and reduced the amount of labor input required. Polarization of the agricultural sector is the result: large firms own and operate most of the land while dwindling populations of subsistence farmers barely survive. Privation policy, farm mechanization, land degradation and population growth has enlarged the rural, landless proletariat and thus fueled the flow of people migrating north to expanding economic opportunities (Jenkins 1997:187).

Landless agriculture populations are increasingly relocating to urban centers looking for employment. The city centers of Mexico do not have existing infrastructure to support the newcomers, nor the job opportunities to incorporate them into the urban economy. A newly expanded domestic labor pool is generated, overall wages are pushed down and unemployment across the urbanized zones of Mexico rises (Alba 1978:505). Those without work, and without the specific skill-sets have migrated north to borderland opportunities within Mexico and increasingly farther north into the U.S.

Trade policies over the last 50 years have been consistently shifting. Growing population, increased urbanization and reduction in arable land has forced the Mexican government to push forward with free trade agreements that represent minimal gains. Most often, free trade agreements serve core industrial economies at the expense of the laborers in periphery economies. NAFTA is an excellent example. Below are just a few examples of the provisions that reinforce positions of core and periphery:
- Elimination of import tariffs on manufactured goods and agricultural products,
- Elimination of tariffs on Mexican crops such as corn and beans (crops where Mexico can actually compete),
- Elimination of tariffs on textiles and apparel,
- The opening up of the automobile market,
- Mexico’s state-owned oil company must allow foreign companies to bid on drilling and exploration,
- U.S. & Canadian companies within Mexico will have the same rights as Mexican companies (and vice versa) and
- U.S. & Canadian banks and investment companies will begin to operate in Mexico (and vice versa) (Acevedo 1992:730).

While most of these provisions are reciprocal, the advantage will always go to the developed countries versus the developing country. Over the last twenty years, fruit, vegetable and nursery agriculture has expanded in the United States increasing the number of opportunities for inexpensive migratory laborers. This continues today. NAFTA aimed to address this, however, much like the tomato market of the 1980’s, both imports and domestic output can rise simultaneously. The gains of the expanded Mexican agribusiness under NAFTA has not exceeded or even adequately offset the losses to liberalization policies for corn and bean crops (Acevedo 1992:734). At best case, the policies of NAFTA have contributed to the development of the Mexican economy, however, it is obvious that the U.S. capitalists are the clear winner in the arrangement. Undoubtedly, in the short to medium term, NAFTA has contributed to the increase in south-north migration.

Mexico continues to move closer to export-oriented industrial development and privatization through a process of liberalization of trade. Production and employment in the export sector has increased significantly faster than in non-exports. At face value, this is good news, however, studies have shown that direct employment effects are extremely small when compared to the opportunities in the United States (Acevedo 1992:734).

As Mexico increases its level of exportation, and reduces its portfolio of export commodities, it becomes increasingly vulnerable to recession. Furthermore, fluctuations in the commodity prices of Mexican agriculture have an inverse relationship with the migration rate – when prices fall, migration goes up (Jenkins 1997: 180). Migration also increases as the Mexican export economy constricts. This cycle is illustrated by the growth of migrant flows following the Mexican recessions of the 1930’s, 1970’s, 1980’s and is prevalent today (Morrison 1982:14). Commodity induced recessions significantly influence unemployment and further the pressures of migration (Morrison 1982:21).

The development process taken by Mexico is based on the development and modernization patterns of industrialize countries. This has resulted in the marginalization of a large proportion of the Mexican population while fostering foreign economic dependence (Alba 1978:507).

The United States has used a strong hand in crafting free trade agreements aimed at lowering the barriers of trade, improving the flexibility of labor and optimizing transportation and communication among its partner economies. By encouraging partners to open their economies to a greater North American competitive market, the U.S. is reinforcing itself, under the auspices of free trade, as the core economy of the region. These tactics represent the “pull” of the push/pull relationship between core and periphery.

The North American capitalist system has and continues to pursue a consolidation of its labor market. Through the creation of a flexible reserve transnational labor force comprised of Mexican (among other countries) migrant labor, the US has developed a competitive regional advantage while allowing its system to generate an even stronger accumulation process (Sandoval 2007:2). A transnational labor force is critical to the flexible accumulation process because they are cheap and can be hired and fired quickly, with low cost and low risk to the employers. They receive Third World wages and subsidize the managerial and professional sectors of multinational (core) corporations. Without opportunities, good wages or workers rights at home, increasing numbers of Mexican migrants have effectively become a reserve labor force in the U.S. that ultimately requires little, remains flexible and drives down overall wages. Increased capital accumulation exploits migrant labor under the premise of improved efficiencies. Methods of exploitation include increasing the intensity of work, extending work hours and paying below value wages (Sandoval 2007:7). The Mexican labor force has become increasingly more flexible to insert itself into the US labor system. They are the consequence of unequal exchange between the US and Mexico, the U.S.’s immigration policy and the transnationalization of capital. As a result, this migrant labor force has become a stateless, fluid entity that supplies the US with a considerable proportion of its workforce in agricultural and industrial sectors (Sandoval 2007:8). Ultimately, this arrangement allows the U.S. to increase their competitiveness at the world market.

U.S. policy has aimed to reduce world trade barriers while simultaneously enacting protection provisions that retain labor-intensive commodities where developing countries, such as Mexico, have a comparable advantage. The protections structures discriminate against imports that are labor intensive. Examples are quantitative restrictions on imports of fresh meat, textiles and fruits and vegetables (Morrison 1982:19). The U.S. also places restrictions on foreign assistance for exports. For example, “section 608 of the Foreign Assistance Act prohibits US foreign assistance for export activities in developing countries that would cause ‘substantial injury’ to US producers” (Morrison 1982:20). Section 608, therefore inhibits investment in development projects aimed at funding textiles, machinery and agricultural goods.

The gap in economic development between core and periphery is so great that initiatives aimed at foreign assistance and employment expansion within Mexico have had little (and sometimes adverse) effect. Income distribution and the ability to make a living wage has historically been a major factor in pulling migrants north. To alleviate this, US foreign assistance has funded projects focused on the poorest segmentations of the Mexican population. Projects aimed to support small farmers have failed as these populations have poor natural endowment and inadequate infrastructure and operate in a system that structurally discriminates against the poorest populations. To date, these self-sustaining projects have been severely constrained (Morrison 1982:14). The Mexican Border Industrialization program was created to improve trade and generate jobs along the Mexican boarder. While trade employment opportunities increased, two unintended consequences emerged. First, a large proportion of the jobs went to women. This new labor force saw reduced wages and rights, increasing downward pressure on wages overall. Second, Mexican men that relocated to northern Mexico overwhelmed the employment market and the surplus, those who could not secure jobs, often continued north into the US, illegally (Morrison 1982:20).

Breaking the barriers of trade and improving the integration of the U.S. and Mexican economies was intended to lift all boats. It is clear that not all boats have risen. The liberalization of trade (and stipulated protections) has primarily served the United States by creating a flexible reserve labor force, lowering overall wages both in the U.S. and Mexico, and increasing economic interdependencies. The policies and agreements between core and periphery have created a significant “pull” factor for south-north migrants.

The idea that free trade will reduce migration has been a false link so far. To date, free trade has benefited the U.S. as it has effectively controlled and regulated low cost migratory flow into the economy. For at least the next few decades, the US economy will require a growing low-cost labor force for steady growth. A force that can ride out the expansions and contractions of our economy will be a reserve labor force comprised primarily of racial and ethnic minorities (Sandoval 2007:23). According to the US Labor Department, “from 2000-2010, more than 24 million new low-skilled jobs will be created, and mostly for Latinos, particularly Mexicans” (Sandoval 2007:23).

Development assistance, employment-generating projects, population programs and income distribution improvements can influence migration in the long run. Arresting migration from Mexico completely through development assistance is not realistic. The social, commercial and political ties that have accompanied assistance in the past (Korea & Taiwan as examples) have often resulted in increased migrations to the US offsetting the migration reducing initiatives (Morrison 1982:15).

A capitalist flexible accumulation process has created a low wage reserve labor force that has grown as global and regional economies integrate. An unforeseen consequence of this process is the struggle of migrant works to defend their rights. Labor forces are organizing nationally and transnationally to defend their human rights. Organizations in the US, Canada and throughout Latin America have fought for a renegotiation of NAFTA and other trade agreements to include a migrant worker’s rights charter (Sandoval 2007:36). Millions of migrant workers mobilized on May 1, 2006 in more than 60 cities to voice their concerns. For the first time, migrant workers had a voice in the debate. Demonstrations and protests are the reactions of migrant workers to the discrimination and exploitation they face and to the dispossession of their human rights. The struggle is ongoing as migrant workers are:

“fundamentally struggling for their right to work and to human mobility, but, above all, to be recognized as citizen of the country to which they continue to develop as the most powerful and richest country in the world, by creating wealth and huge profits in agriculture, construction, manufacturing, service and other sectors” (Sandoval 2007:37).

Efforts to mitigate migration by trade-induced job transfers from the United States to Mexico have not and will not work. Wage inequalities remain so large than even if Mexican wages increase considerably, they will not be enough to change international migration to internal migration (Acevedo 1992:734). Ultimately, policy makers in North America see liberal trade policies as the route towards improved economies across the board. The incentives for migration will cease only when the Mexican economy moves closer to parody relative to that of the U.S. economy. This includes better wages, increased employment opportunities and greater capital investment in the Mexican economy. Until each is creatively addressed, the push/pull relationship will be strong and the flow of migration from Mexico to the U.S. will continue.

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Staff Writer (?)
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