Country Resource - Mexico
- Population........................................................................129,875,529 (2023 est.)
- Population growth rate ..............................................................0.61% (2023 est.)
- Birth rate...................................................13.95 births/1,000 population (2023 est.)
- Death rate...................................................7.07 deaths/1,000 population (2023 est.)
- Net migration rate...............................-0.77 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2023 est.)
- Ethnic groups*.................................Mestizo (Amerindian-Spanish) 62%, predominantly Amerindian 21%, Amerindian 7%, other 10% (mostly European) (2012 est.)
* Mexico does not collect census data on ethnicity
CIA World Factbook
Fundamental demographic, economic, and educational changes have set Mexico on a new path, significantly altering its migration-related priorities and concerns vis-a-vis the United States and Central America. This article examines new migration trends, Mexico's role as a country of transit and increasingly of destination, the 2011 migration law, remittances, government policies on the Mexican diaspora, and more.
Recent Activity
MPI's Muzaffar Chishti and Claire Bergeron take an in-depth look at Arizona's SB 1070, from the range of responses to what it means for federal immigration reform. Also in this edition: a bill that would revoke the U.S. citizenship of those found helping terrorists, more delays for the "virtual fence," increased approvals for Mexican nationals' asylum applications, and more.
The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues estimates there are more than 370 million indigenous people in some 90 countries worldwide. Carlos Yescas of the New School for Social Research looks at the definition of indigenous people, the three types of indigenous-people flows, and how indigenous migrants maintain ties with their home communities.
Remittances would seem to boost the chances that children in Mexico complete high school. But money alone does not improve schooling outcomes in the educationally marginalized, migrant-sending regions of southern Mexico, as Adam Sawyer of the Harvard Graduate School of Education reports.
The recent recession has affected Mexicans in the United States, new flows northward, and remittances to Mexico. Francisco Alba of El Colegio de México examines the latest trends as well as Mexican government policies toward the diaspora, Mexico's role as a transit country, and immigrants and refugee and asylees in Mexico.
In the 1920s, the Catholic Church in Mexico feared that mass emigration north caused the breakup of families and religious conversions. David Fitzgerald of the University of California, San Diego looks at how Church policy eventually became a voice for migrants' rights and how these policies have affected Mexican migration flows and Mexican government policies.
Approximately 400,000 migrants transit through Mexico each year in order to reach the United States, many of them women from Latin America. Gabriela Diaz and Gretchen Kuhner explain how the detention system's structure and new detention procedures affect women.
Click here to read the article in English.
México es uno de los principales países de tránsito de migrantes en el mundo, particularmente para los miles de centroamericanos que viajan cada año por el país con el objetivo de alcanzar los Estados Unidos.
Since 2000, Mexico has further intensified efforts to detain and deport irregular migrants. Gabriela Diaz and Gretchen Kuhner investigate the experiences of women migrants, the majority of them from Latin America, who have been detained in Mexico en route to the United States.
Mexico has often been cited as a successful example of the positive relationship between migration and development. But Raúl Delgado-Wise and Luis Eduardo Guarnizo show why Mexico's model is unsustainable.
HTAs are active throughout the United States, Europe, and parts of East Asia. Manuel Orozco and Rebecca Rouse of the Inter-American Dialogue provide an overview of HTAs and look at the development role they play.
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This report outlines the long-standing pattern of government inattention to borders in Central America's Northern Triangle – probing root causes that range from institutional, economic, and resource challenges to corruption and weak government structures.
This report investigates the reasons behind Mexico’s lackluster economic growth over recent decades. The author identifies lines of argument to explain Mexico’s sluggish growth, assesses the importance of these factors, and offers a road map for confronting this disappointing growth record.
The economic consequences of emigration on migrants’ countries of origin have long been studied, yet the precise assessment of positive and negative impacts remains complex. This analysis finds that Mexico’s fiscal balance appears to benefit from emigration when considering remittances and labor markets.
Migration to the United States from Mexico and Central America’s Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) has accelerated in the last four decades. This increase has been driven by economic opportunities and facilitated by social networks of friends and family already in the United States.
This report reviews the history of immigration legislation since 9/11, the new enforcement mandates that arose immediately afterward, and the unsuccessful efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform bills during the 109th and 110th Congresses.
Since 1970, the immigrant populations from Mexico and Central America living in the United States have increased significantly: rising by a factor of 20 even as the total U.S. immigrant population increased four-fold over the period. This demographic report examines the age, educational, and workforce characteristics of these immigrants.
Over the past half century, migration from Mexico and Central America to the United States has been driven in part by regional demographic and human-capital trends. As the U.S. labor force became better educated, fewer native workers accepted certain low-skilled jobs. This report offers a look at the economic changes that have coincided with a Mexican and Central American population boom.
Migrant-sending and migrant-receiving countries rarely collaborate on migration issues because the structure of global migration systems ensures they often disagree about core policy issues. This report shows that migration collaboration makes sense when states share common goals they cannot achieve on their own.
Information and technology are centerpieces of a new border architecture that seeks to respond to the competing demands of facilitating mobility and managing cross-border risks while remaining cost-efficient and respectful of rights and privacy. This report shows how governments must approach border management systems to ensure properly balanced development.
Faced with enormous political pressure to stop illegal immigration and to prevent the entry of potential terrorists, the U.S. government has devoted ever more resources to enforcing border policies. It remains unclear, the author argues, whether the efficacy of these programs warrants their costs.
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