Migrant Children and Migrants' Children: Differentials in School Enrollment in Mexico

Jennifer E. Glick, Arizona State University
Carey E. Cooper, Arizona State University

Research on children’s well-being in the context of immigration has focused almost exclusively on the importance of migrant parents’ experiences and the expectation that children benefit from or are disadvantaged by the migration of others. But the growing prevalence of US-born children living in Mexico requires re-consideration of this more traditional model of the intergenerational consequences of migration. This paper draws on nationally representative household data in Mexico (ENADID: 2009) to examine differential school enrollment patterns among Mexican and US born children in Mexico. The results reveal that, adjusting for household resources and household-level migration experience, US born children lag behind in school enrollment at younger ages. The analyses provide some preliminary evidence that US born children encounter some structural barriers to school enrollment that are not shared by their Mexican born counterparts. However, the enrollment disadvantage is ameliorated somewhat among older children.