Department of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA,
Demography. 2012 Nov;49(4):1335-60. doi: 10.1007/s13524-012-0128-6.
To evaluate the distributional impact of remittances in origin communities, prior research studied how migrants' selectivity by wealth varies with migration prevalence in the community or prior migration experience of the individual. This study considers both patterns; it examines selectivity separately in low- and high-prevalence communities and for first-time and repeat migrants. Based on data from 18,042 household heads in 119 Mexican communities from the Mexican Migration Project, the analyses show that (1) first-time migrants in low-prevalence communities come from poor households, whereas repeat migrants in high-prevalence communities belong to wealthy households; and (2) higher amounts of remittances reach wealthy households. These results suggest that repeat migration and remittances may be mechanisms for wealth accumulation in the study communities. Descriptive analyses associate these mechanisms with increasing wealth disparities between households with and without migrants, especially in high-prevalence communities. The study, similar to prior findings, shows the importance of repeat migration trips, which, given sustained remittances, may amplify the wealth gap between migrants and nonmigrants in migrant-sending communities. The study also qualifies prior findings by differentiating between low- and high-prevalence communities and observing a growing wealth gap only in the latter.
为了评估汇款对原籍社区的分配影响，先前的研究考察了移民的财富选择性如何随社区中的移民流行率或个人先前的移民经历而变化。本研究考虑了这两种模式；它分别在低流行社区和高流行社区以及初次移民和重复移民中考察选择性。基于来自墨西哥移民项目的 119 个墨西哥社区的 18042 户家庭户主的数据，分析表明：(1)低流行社区中的初次移民来自贫困家庭，而高流行社区中的重复移民则来自富裕家庭；(2)更多的汇款流向富裕家庭。这些结果表明，重复移民和汇款可能是研究社区中财富积累的机制。描述性分析将这些机制与有移民和没有移民的家庭之间日益扩大的财富差距联系起来，尤其是在高流行社区。该研究与先前的研究结果相似，表明重复移民旅行的重要性，鉴于持续的汇款，这可能会扩大移民社区中移民与非移民之间的财富差距。该研究还通过区分低流行社区和高流行社区以及仅在后者中观察到不断扩大的财富差距，对先前的研究结果进行了限定。
