| | |  Americas & Beyond | May 2009 
Nearly 3 Million Mexican Women Residing in US are Mothers
 SEGOB - Presidencia de la República
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| • 95% of children of Mexican mothers are U.S. citizens
• Over a quarter of Mexican mothers live in poverty | |
Mexico City - Nowadays, 56% of Mexican women living in the United States are mothers, making an absolute total of three million. They are predominantly located in the states that have traditionally been destinations of Mexican migration: California (42%), Texas (20.4%), Arizona (6.2%) and Illinois (6%).
According to the National Population Council (Conapo), which is answerable to the Interior Secretariat, approximately 86% of Mexican mothers have children under 18, making a total of 7.1 million. One feature associated with Mexican women resident in the United States is their greater fertility in comparison with other groups of immigrants: 2.3, a higher average than that of U.S.-born women (1.85) and other immigrants (1.87).
The vast majority (95%) of children of Mexican women in the U.S. are U.S. citizens, mainly because they were born there. The coexistence of children of different citizenship status and therefore with different rights and privileges is a situation that may contribuye to tension within Mexican households.
There are 1.2 million Mexican mothers working in the U.S. economy. However, they have lower rates of economic participation (43%) than U.S.-born women (69%) and other immigrants (67%). Mexican women's lower rate of participation in the labor force is probably partially linked to their greater difficulty in reconciling child-raising with work. Nevertheless, 74% of those in the labor force are full-time employees.
Six out of ten Mexican working mothers are engaged in maintenance, cleaning, food preparation and related activities as well as sales, administrative support and office jobs. Conversely, only one out of every ten is engaged in executive, professional or technical work. This less favorable insertion in the labor market than that of other groups is due to their lower educational attainment and the high index of lack of documentation.
Although Mexican mothers resident in the United States improve their living standards, 27% live in poverty, over twice the rate for immigrants from other parts of the world and U.S.-born women (12% in both cases).
Source: Media and Communications Office. Interior Secretariat (SEGOB). |
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