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Selecting Communities

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+ The process of selecting communities for the Mexican Migration has traditionally relied on + anthropological methods. Communities are chosen after a personal reconnaissance of the + geographic area to be studied by the principal investigators. Because the project initially + focused on Western Mexico, the traditional heartland for migration to the United States, + practically all of the earliest communities had significant indices of out-migration, which + could easily be detected using field interviews and simple observations of the frequency of + new homes, foreign license plates, currency exchanges, and international courier services. +

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+ Until 2000, we lacked access to a valid measure to indicate the intensity of emigration + from specific municipalities and the only measure indicating migration was the sex ratio. + The only demographic fact regularly considered was the community’s sex ratio, which offer + general picture of the intensity of the process of international migration because in + Mexico emigration is so heavily male. After an initial round of fieldwork, investigators + compared their preliminary data with census statistics and formation available from + bibliographic sources. However, the MMP has never explicitly sought to survey only + communities with high rates of out-migration. Investigators simply seek to corroborate + that there is some migration from the community in question before proceeding. Then they + select four specific locations to represent each of four levels of urbanization: +

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Ranchos

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fewer than 2,500 inhabitants

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Pueblos (Towns)

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2,500 to 10,000 inhabitants

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Mid-sized Cities

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10,000 to 100,000 inhabitants

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Large City

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+ usually a particular neighborhood within in a state’s capital city +

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+ In the pueblos and ranchos, investigators conduct a complete census of dwellings and + undertake random selection from the resulting list. In mid-sized cities and urban + metropolises, investigators generally chose a traditional, well-established neighborhood–one + not dominated by recent rural-urban migrants. As a result, the urban samples are in reality + samples of urban neighborhoods or specifically demarcated quarters. In all cases, the + neighborhood must have at least 1,200 enumerated dwellings, from which a random sample of + 200 is taken. +

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+ The methodology of the MMP thus yields results with a high degree of representativeness at + the community level, and in some of the smaller pueblos and ranchos investigators have been + able to survey every household in the community. Given that the sample is not targeted to + migrants per se, but surveys the community as a whole, the project needs a fairly large + sample size to generate a significant number of migrants. Traditional methods of cluster + sampling generally survey small numbers of respondents across a large number of areas, but + this generally yields small numbers of migrants to study an inability to make + generalizations at the community level. For example, rather than interviewing 20 households + in five communities we interview 100 households in one community, thereby enabling us to + make generalizations about migratory processes at the community level. If the frequency of + migration is 30%, on average the surveys would contain only six migrants in each of the five + communities, rather than 30 migrants in one community. +

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+ At present we are able to draw upon an index of migratory developed for municipalities in + Mexico’s National Population Council (CONAPO) based on the 2000 and 2010 census. This index + provides reliable information about the level of U.S. migration prevailing at the municipal + level and is particularly useful in identifying new communities of origin for migrants in + new sending states, where heretofore little information has been available. In sum, after 25 + years of field experience, the MMP continues to use anthropological criteria for selecting + communities, which are then corroborated with available data from the census and other + sources to confirm the existence of migrants before making the final selection. +

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Ethnosurvey

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+ The Ethnosurvey is eclectic and draws on methods and approaches well-known in sociology, + anthropology, psychology, and education. Its contribution and complexity lies in the way all + these methods are combined within a single study. The main idea for the Ethnosurvey is “to + complement qualitative and quantitative procedures, so one’s weakenesses become the other’s + strength, yielding a body of data with greater reliability and more internal validity than + is possible to achieve using either method alone.” (Massey 1987). +

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+ The Ethnosurvey contains a series of tables that are organized around a particular topic, + giving coherence to the “conversation”. It follows a semi structured format to generate an + interview schedule that is flexible, unobtrusive and non-threatening. It requires that + identical information be obtained for each person, but questions, wording and ordering are + not fixed. The precise phrasing and timing of each query is left to the judgment of the + interviewer, depending on circumstances. +

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+ In addition, the Ethnosurvey is explicitly designed to provide quantitative data for + multi-level analysis by compiling data at the individual, household, and community levels. + Detailed community-level data are compiled at the time of the survey by the fieldwork + supervisor; these data are of great help to interpret the socioeconomic context within which + individuals and households interact (Massey 1987). This small questionnaire is referred to + as the Community Data Inventory. +

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Interview Process

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+ The questionnaires are applied in three phases. In the first phase, basic social and + demographic data are collected from all members of the household. The interview begins by + identifying the household head and systematically enumerating the spouse and children, + beginning with the oldest. All children of the head are listed on the questionnaire whether + or not they live at home, but if a son or daughter is a member of another household, this + fact is recorded. A child is considered to be living in a separate household if he or she is + married, maintains a separate house or kitchen, and organizes expenses separately. After + listing the head, spouse, and children, other household members are identified and their + relationship to the head clarified. +

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Phase 1

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+ A particularly important task in the first phase of the questionnaire is the + identification of people with prior migrant experience in either the United States or + Mexico. For those individuals with migrant experience the interviewer records the total + number of U.S. trips, as well as information about the first and most recent U.S. trips, + including the year, duration, destination, U.S. occupation, legal status, and hourly wage. + This exercise is then repeated for first and most recent migrations within Mexico. +

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Phase 2

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+ The second phase of the ethnosurvey questionnaire compiles a year-by-year life history for + all household heads, including a childbearing history, a property history, a housing + history, a business history, and a labor history. The goal of this phase is to capture + occupational mobility, health status, migration history, and family formation. +

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Phase 3

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+ The third and final phase of the questionnaire gathers information about the household + head's experiences on his or her most recent trip to the United States, including the mode + of border-crossing, the kind and number of accompanying relatives, the kind and number of + relatives already present in the United States, the number of social ties that had been + formed with U.S. citizens, English language ability, job characteristics, and use of U.S. + social services. +

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Data Coding/Weights

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Data Coding and File Construction

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+ After the ethnosurvey questionnaires are completed and revised, data are entered in + Mexico. The entry programs perform initial screening, range checks, and simple tests for + logical consistency. The preliminary files are then transferred to Princeton University, + where additional data cleaning is performed, numeric codes are assigned to occupations and + places, and the final data sets are assembled into six primary data files, each providing + a unique perspective of Mexican migrants, their families, and their experiences. SIX + primary files have been created, each corresponding to a different unit of analysis: PERS, + MIG, MIGOTHER, HOUSE, LIFE and SPOUSE. Data at the community level have been compiled in + the file: COMMUN. +

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Weights

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+ The MMP database provides community- and sample-specific weights. For each community, you + will see a single weight for all the households in the home country sample and another + weight for all the households in the US sample. +

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+ When working with pooled data from multiple communities, these weights give you the option + to adjust your estimates in order to take into account the relative sizes of all the + sampling frames. Whether you will need to weight your estimates or not will depend on what + your goal is. +

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