The dilemma of highly-skilled mexican migration: Brain circulation or a new mode of dependency?

Abstract

Resulting from the implementation of structural adjustment programs in Mexico, Mexican migration to the United States experienced an unprecedented growth. The signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) accentuated further the phenomenon to the degree that it turned Mexico into the number one country of emigrants in the world. This seemingly inexhaustible expulsive force brought with it profound qualitative transformations in the migratory phenomenon associated with processes of deep social transformation. One of these, which has received relatively little attention in the literature, has to do with highly skilled labour migration, which in the last two decades has shown a pace of growth greater than Mexican migration in general, which makes Mexico the second-ranked country in the world in sending highly skilled migrants to the United States; first to the rest of Latin America and sixth to the rest of the world.