Thread: Mexico's Shrinking Families Could Cut Flow To U.S.

Mexico's shrinking families could cut flow to U.S.


Thu Feb 19, 2009 7:09pm EST

FACTBOX: Mexico's shrinking families and migrant flows to U.S. 7:08pm ESTBy Jason Lange

JALPA, Mexico (Reuters) - Forty years ago, Ramiro Viramontes slept on palm frond mats on a crowded floor with his six brothers and sisters. Unable to find jobs when they grew up, most left Mexico for the United States.

Mexican families sent millions of illegal workers to the United States in the late 20th century as the country's population grew faster than its ability to create jobs.

But now, Mexicans are having many fewer children due to government birth-control campaigns and changing lifestyles. That is causing a deep demographic shift that could turn back the immigration tide.

The average Mexican family went from having seven children in 1960 to two in 2008. Families in Mexico are now slightly smaller than Hispanic families in the United States.

Viramontes, 48, an electrician, is a father of just two.

"We didn't want our kids to go through what we went through. We didn't want them to be tempted to leave," said Viramontes, whose siblings are scattered from California to Massachusetts.

Some 11.4 million people left Mexico between 1970 and 2006, Mexican government demographers say. Almost all went north, in probably the largest wave of immigrants ever from one country to the United States.

The number of people leaving each year appears to have peaked at around 600,000 in 2001, according to researchers at the government's National Population Council, or Conapo.

Fewer have left each year since then, with about 440,000 Mexicans emigrating in 2006. Researchers say the number should keep falling as Mexican population growth slows.

"We have already seen the peak," said Paula Leite, head of demographic research for migration studies at Conapo.

Some experts say the U.S. economic downturn and tighter policing have further stemmed the flow of illegal migrants in the last two years, and also persuaded some Mexicans already in the United States to return home.

DESERT TREKS

Many Mexicans crossed deserts on foot or swam across the Rio Grande to seek jobs in hotels and restaurants, on farms, and in construction. The influx profoundly changed America.

Hispanics are the largest U.S. minority group with growing influence in politics and business. Nearly one in 10 people in the United States claim Mexican heritage.

U.S. authorities are building a 670-mile fence along the border to stop more coming but some researchers say that kind of measure might be overkill. Continued...

Mexico's shrinking families could cut flow to U.S.
Thu Feb 19, 2009 7:09pm EST Email | Print | Share| Reprints | Single Page[-] Text [+]
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FACTBOX: Mexico's shrinking families and migrant flows to U.S.
7:08pm EST"It's like building a dike for a flood that might not be there," said Dowell Myers, a professor of urban planning and demography at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Viramontes and his wife decided to have a small family to provide more for fewer mouths. Indeed, their son went to college and then opened an Internet cafe in town.

They were guided by a government birth control program launched in the 1970s that told families that having lots of children would keep them poor. Millions heeded the campaign, despite opposition from the influential Roman Catholic Church.

In Jalpa, a ranching town in central Mexico that has lost much of its population to the United States, public health clinics distributed condoms and birth control pills. Doctors also suggested women use intrauterine devices, or IUDs.

"As soon as a child was born, the doctors wanted to put the device in my wife," said Viramontes.

Jalpa town councilman Jesus Guerrero, 65, remembers his grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary party where nearly 100 grandchildren gathered. Guerrero himself has only three.

"Small families live better," Guerrero said, echoing a government slogan that most people in Jalpa seem to have memorized.

Across the developing world, birth rates fell during the late 20th century as economies grew, health care improved and women gained better access to jobs and birth control.

Mexican families shrank faster than most. Annual population growth fell from 3.35 percent in 1960 to less than 1 percent in 2008. Smaller numbers are entering the workforce every year.

GOOD JOBS

Still, no matter how small Mexican families get, some workers will still cross the border to seek higher U.S. salaries. Mexico's minimum wage is less than $4 a day compared to the U.S. federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour.

"The demographic change will mean less pressure on people to leave but they're still going to need good jobs in Mexico," said Philip Martin, a professor specializing in immigration, farm labor and economic development at the University of California, Davis.

Any decline in immigration from Mexico will be slow because leaving for America is so customary in towns like Jalpa that many teenagers hardly look for work before shipping out.

Nearly everyone has kin in the United States, making it easier to settle and find a job. Hundreds of thousands could still cross the border every year for years to come, demographers say.

Anselmo Munoz, 50, who runs a vegetable stall in Jalpa's market, says he looks after the homes of his 10 brothers and sisters who live in the United States.

His uncle is a "coyote," or migrant smuggler. Of his three kids, one has settled in town, and two are still in school.



"I hope they stay," he said.

(Editing by Alan Elsner and Kieran Murray)


http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNew ... =worldNews

aint buying it.. as soon as Amnesty is given (Obama, Pelosi and Reid) want it BAD .... you will see Mexican family members come out of the wood work to get a family member green card

The number of people leaving each year appears to have peaked at around 600,000 in 2001, according to researchers at the government's National Population Council, or Conapo.

WHAT? Do these people have any idea of the size of their own population, or do they just spout statistics from stories in various villages?

So what, their family sizes here in the US are INCREASING!

Originally Posted by Bowman

So what, their family sizes here in the US are INCREASING!

As they would in any case when you have a more kids = more freeeebies!

If the mex govt is behind this birth control trend, then I'd say that is one of thier smarter moves. I still cannot understand why poor countries have so so many kids. They are tying thier own rope!

That's what happens when you don't get welfare for every kid you have, in other words, you quit having kids you can't feed.

Dixie

What I'm seeing is that they're not getting married. They still have the kids. They just hypenate the names and use only the mother's maiden name for Medicaid, etc.

Originally Posted by Bowman

So what, their family sizes here in the US are INCREASING!

Precisely! What's the damn difference what happens there with their citizens' birth rates? Over here, they're poppin' 'em out like a Pez candy dispenser...and WE are paying for it over and over and over again.

With every anchor child they deliver here the benefits just increase for them. The Hispanic population in this country is increasing more from births than actual immigration now. Unless the anchor baby citizenship is stopped, all other measures will have little effect, I'm afraid.

Originally Posted by hattiecat

Unless the anchor baby citizenship is stopped, all other measures will have little effect, I'm afraid.

I'm afraid you're right.