Return Migration to Mexico: Does Health Matter?

Abstract

We use data from three rounds of the Mexican Family Life Survey to examine whether migrants in the United States returning to Mexico in the period 2005–2012 have worse health than those remaining in the United States. Despite extensive interest by demographers in health-related selection, this has been a neglected area of study in the literature on U.S.-Mexico migration, and the few results to date have been contradictory and inconclusive. Using five self-reported health variables collected while migrants resided in the United States and subsequent migration history, we find direct evidence of higher probabilities of return migration for Mexican migrants in poor health as well as lower probabilities of return for migrants with improving health. These findings are robust to the inclusion of potential confounders reflecting the migrants’ demographic characteristics, economic situation, family ties, and origin and destination characteristics. We anticipate that in the coming decade, health may become an even more salient issue in migrants’ decisions about returning to Mexico, given the recent expansion in access to health insurance in Mexico.

Moving Beyond Salmon Bias: Mexican Return Migration and Health Selection

“…The salmon bias hypothesis, which posits that the apparent Hispanic health advantage is due to return migration among less-healthy migrants, has received an increasing amount of support in the literature (e.g., Arenas et al 2015; Palloni and Arias 2004; Turra and Elo 2008). We contribute to this growing body of work by pooling data from two California-based studies to look for evidence of health-related return migration among both voluntary return migrants and deportees.…”

“…Extant work has also documented that Mexican return migrants are significantly more likely to report poor global and mental health, chronic conditions, hypertension, and heart disease as well as higher rates of obesity and smoking than Mexican immigrants who remain in the United States (Arenas et al 2015; Bostean 2013). Although substantial contributions emerged from recent scholarship on salmon bias, the factors that could be driving return migration remain unclear.…”

“…Migrants are thus likely to engage in medical returns upon becoming ill in the host society (Bastida et al 2008; Fong 2008; Wallace et al 2009). Given the recent adoption of universal health coverage in Mexico, medical returns may be an increasingly relevant mechanism of return in the current period (Arenas et al 2015; Knaul et al 2012). In the event that U.S. health care is unaffordable or undesirable, we may expect selection to be driven—or magnified—by those seeking medical attention in their country of origin.…”

Educational optimism in China: migrant selectivity or migration experience?

“…The idea that migrants are not a random sample representing the broader population of origin brings us to now-mainstream research questions in the sociology of immigration: Are migrants a representative population of those who do not migrate or rather a (positively) self-selected group? Mentions of selectivity as the ultimate cause of immigrant-native differentials in integration outcomes can already be found in early seminal contributions in the field of intergenerational mobility (Borjas 1992), and recent research on health outcomes (Arenas et al 2015;Riosmena, Kuhn, and Jochem 2017) as well as in the general study of aspirations gaps by migrant status (Czaika and Vothknecht 2014). Recently, in the field of education, the idea of migrant selectivity has also found echo (Feliciano 2005a(Feliciano , 2005b.…”

Urban–rural disparities in adult mortality in sub-Saharan Africa

“…Adults in cities should be expected to enjoy lower mortality particularly given longstanding urban bias (Lipton 1977), expanded health service provision in cities (The Lancet 2015), and better educational and economic opportunities in urban areas (Lipton 1977;Sahn and Stifel 2003). Furthermore, any direct urban health advantage should be reinforced if rural to urban migrants are positively selected for health (Lu 2008;Marmot, Adelstein, and Bulusu 1984;Nauman et al 2015) or if urban migrants return to the rural sector due to old age or poor health (Arenas et al 2015;Clark et al 2007). …”