Emigration from Two Labor Frontier Nations: A Comparison of Moroccans in Spain and Mexicans in the United States

Authors

  • Douglas S. Massey Princeton Sociology Departament
  • Philip Connor Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life Forum. Washington, DC.
  • Jorge Durand Universidad de Guadalajara, Jalisco

Abstract

Mexico and Morocco share many common characteristics as labor migrant pools for industrialized countries to the North. However, comparisons between migrants from each country are few, particularly with respect to economic outcomes using nationally representative data. Using recent immigrant surveys from Spain and the United States, this paper presents the first quantitative analysis to compare Moroccans and Mexicans, testing for the effects of human and social capital on employment, occupational attainment, and wages. Although the lower employment levels of Moroccans compared to Mexicans would seem to suggest greater labor market discrimination against Moroccans in Spain, closer inspection of the returns to various forms of capital and other inputs yields a more mixed picture. Both methodological and social explanations for these mixed findings are discussed.

Keywords

immigration, foreign workers, Morocco, Mexico, human resources, social capital, comparative analysis, ethnosurvey questionnaire

Author Biographies

Douglas S. Massey, Princeton Sociology Departament

By the late 20th century, every developed country had become an immigrant-receiving society, drawing migrants primarily from the developing world. Return to Aztlan focused on the social mechanisms promoting and sustaining emigration from Mexico to the United States. Worlds in Motion: Understanding International Migration at the End of the Millennium developed a theoretical synthesis to account for immigration. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Age of Economic Integration used the same theoretical framework to analyze the history of Mexico-U.S. migration, offer a critique of past U.S. policies, and suggest avenues for future reform.

African Americans are uniquely segregated in American cities, and since the publication of American Apartheid, I have been working on the consequences of segregation for African Americans and Latinos of African ancestry. Segregation figured prominently in explanations for black underachievement in the Source of the River, and it interacts with shifts in the U.S. income distribution to yield a rising concentration of poverty that, in turn, intensifies social disorder and violence that undermines the health of African Americans, reduces their life expectancy, and impairs their cognitive development.

Philip Connor, Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life Forum. Washington, DC.

Es investigador asociado en el Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life Forum. Se ha especializado en religiones y migraciones y ha estudiado las pautas de migración y la adaptación de los inmigrantes a sus nuevas sociedades en todo el mundo. Antes de incorporarse al Pew Forum, fue miembro del Social Science and Humanities Research Council de Canadá así como miembro graduado del Center for the Study of Religión de Princeton. Sus publicaciones examinan principalmente la adaptación religiosa del inmigrante y han aparecido en varias revistas, entre ellas Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Sociological Forum, Ethnic and Racial Studies, International Migration e International Migration Review

Jorge Durand, Universidad de Guadalajara, Jalisco

Es antropólogo y profesor-investigador titular del Departamento de Estudios sobre los Movimientos Socioales (DESMoS) de la Universidad de Guadalajara, en Jalisco, y codirector, del Mexican Migration Project (desde 1987) y del Latin American Migration Project (desde 1996) auspiciado por Princeton University y la Universidad de Guadalajara. Es miembro del Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (Nivel III), de la Academia Mexicana de Ciencias, de la National Academy of Sciences de Estados Unidos, y de la American Philosophical Society. Durante los últimos quince años ha estudiado el fenómeno migratorio entre México y Estados Unidos. Entre sus publicaciones destacan Miracles on the Border, La experiencia migrante, Beyond Smoke and Mirrors y Clandestinos: Migración México Estados Unidos en los albores del siglo XXI .

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/papers/v96n3.262

Published

2011-07-01

How to Cite

Massey, D. S., Connor, P., & Durand, J. (2011). Emigration from Two Labor Frontier Nations: A Comparison of Moroccans in Spain and Mexicans in the United States. Papers. Revista De Sociologia, 96(3), 781–803. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/papers/v96n3.262

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Copyright (c) 2010 Douglas S. Massey, Philip Connor, Jorge Durand

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.