title: 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.
authors.affiliation: California Center for Population Research, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.|Centro de Análisis y Medición del Bienestar Social, AC, México, DF, México.
authors.forename: Erika
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Arenas
authors.affiliation: Office of Population Research, Princeton University, 243 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA. ngoldman@princeton.edu.
authors.forename: Noreen
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Goldman
authors.affiliation: California Center for Population Research and Fielding School of Public Health, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
authors.forename: Anne R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Pebley
authors.affiliation: Universidad Iberoamericana, AC, México, DF, México.
authors.forename: Graciela
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Teruel
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D004641:Emigration and Immigration; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D017058:Mexican Americans; D008800:Mexico / Q000208:ethnology; D008875:Middle Aged; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States
keywords: Health-related emigration; Mexico; Return migration; Salmon bias; Selection