Zero Migration?

Felipe Calderon made assurances that the migration rate has reached zero this year due to the opportunities that Mexico offered its population; many people were therefore considering returning to Mexico when given the change of opportunities in the country, hence the title of Calderon’s article, “Zero Migration Rate” (Milenio, 25 April). But soon, reality will put things in their proper perspective, unfortunately.

Data presented by the National Institute of Geographic Statistics in September of this year shows that migration to the United States has picked up in the second quarter of 2012, reaching 41.9 persons per day for every 10 thousand residents, while the figure had been 14.3. According to the agency, it’s the first time that such a high indicator has been seen since 2008. This is very interesting data, since it highlights a group of facts that have been intensely debated over more or less a year, when it was said that Mexico, thanks to its economic and social changes, would have reached zero migration.

What happened? In the first place, it has to be emphasized that the image Mexico offered was, to say the least, incorrect. On the one hand, education hasn’t absorbed the thousands of young people that continue to stay outside of the sector because of budget insufficiencies, as the so called “rejected” can prove. On the other hand, when it boasts of new low levels of unemployment that would place us in much more positive circumstances than European countries and even the United States, the fact that informal work has also increased in excessive proportions is often overlooked, shifting away from so-called “decent jobs” and therefore not receiving social benefits. Nor can we now believe that low birth rates, presumed to be the reason behind the reduction of the migratory flow, has now begun to increase. For many years, demographers have shown that once the birth rate begins to drop, it is difficult to turn this around. A situation that most developed countries know well, with the familiar consequence of demographic problems that are affecting their economic development through workforce shortages. Therefore, it is hard to believe the supposed prosperity, so bragged about by Felipe Calderon, suffered a reversal over just a few months.

So how can we explain this significant rise in migration to the United States? The first and most logical answer is that the United States, on the receiving end, has begun to experience an economic recovery. According to OECD analysts, the United States “has gained momentum” because indicators such as consumer and business spending have increased. Unemployment, even while continuing to be high at 8.2 percent, has dropped almost two percentage points from its peak in 2009. Strangely, the sectors that are the base of this transformation are, on the one hand, the automotive industry and on the other, construction to a great extent. All of this is reflected by housing prices, which have registered an annual increase: an unmistakable signal, say analysts, that the real estate industry is experiencing a sustained recovery. On the other hand, we see an increase in automobile sales, which rose from 12.4 million in Aug. 2011 to 14.5 million in Aug. 2012.

Another factor that can’t be dismissed has to do with the needs of the so-called knowledge based economy, to which the United States grants a great deal of importance as a possible way of recovering from the crisis. However, it faces structural problems that are difficult to solve in the short term, such as shortages of a highly skilled labor force and training for young people in areas such as engineering, mathematics, computers, etc. – sectors in which the unemployment rate is very low at 4.5 percent. No wonder we read in the New York Times (Julia Preston) that the Republicans are supporting a law allowing foreign graduates in those sciences can stay!

In other words, the migratory flow reversal was regretfully temporary, just as we have indicated in previous contributions, since it depended exactly on when the pole of attraction, the United States, would begin to recover.