Distant fields: Mexican farmworkers and new immigrant destinations in the United States

The demand for low-wage agricultural workers has been vital to the history of Mexican migration to the United States and continues to be an important factor in contemporary immigration processes. Mexican-born farmworkers, similar to immigrants in other industries, are increasingly bypassing traditional gateway cities and states and settling in new destinations. This research focuses on changes in the geographic distribution of Mexican-born farmworkers over time, earnings inequalities among Mexican-born farmworkers living in traditional agricultural settlement states (California and Texas) and those living in new agricultural destination states, and the structural changes in the agriculture industry that are increasing the demand for hired farm workers. Findings suggest that there has been a dramatic shift in the geographic distribution of this population since 1980, as the proportion of Mexican-born farmworkers living outside of traditional settlement areas has increased. Also, in the 1980s, Mexican-born farmworkers living in traditional settlement states had higher earnings than those residing elsewhere, but that since 1990 earnings have been greater for farmworkers living in new destination states. Through decomposition analysis, this reversal of earnings inequalities is found to be more attributable to changes in the structure of earnings less to changes in the population composition. Variation in the relationship between agricultural restructuring and the demand for hired labor across traditional settlement states and new destination states helps explain these patterns.