Central American Migration in the United States, Spain and Mexico after the Great Recession: A Three-Way Game?

Andreu Domingo, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Jessica Natalia Najera Aguirre , El Colegio de México
Jordi Bayona-i-Carrasco, Centre d’Estudis Demogràfics (CED), UAB

After the Great Recession, migration flows from Central American countries -especially those originating in Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala- increased notably in Spain, contributing to a second migration boom in this country. The reasons for this increase are to be found both in the internal factors of expulsion - economic and political crisis and citizen insecurity - and in the increased control and restrictions on entry to the United States - the traditional destination of these flows, which in fact also increased the presence of these populations in Mexico, until then exclusively a transit country. Our starting hypothesis is that this three-way restructuring of flows, disrupted by Covid-19, is not a simple redirection, but a diversification. Thus, the population that now goes to Spain has different socio-demographic characteristics from that which traditionally went to the United States, while that which now remains in Mexico also shows a selective process with respect to both that which will end up entering the United States and that which migrates to Spain. To test this hypothesis, this proposal aims to comparatively analyse the characteristics of the Central American populations residing in the United States, Spain and Mexico from 2014 to 2021, using census data from the three countries.

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 Presented in Session P3. Migration, Economics, Policies, History