Skills of the "Unskilled" ─ Work and Mobility Among Mexican Migrants

Most labor and migration studies classify migrants with limited formal education or credentials as unskilled.” Despite the value of migrants' work experiences and the substantial technical and interpersonal skills developed throughout their lives, the labor-market contributions of these migrants are often overlooked and their mobility pathways poorly understood.Skills of the Unskilled” reports the findings of a five-year study that draws on research including interviews with 320 Mexican migrants and return migrants in North Carolina and Guanajuato, Mexico. The authors uncover these migrants’ lifelong human capital and identify mobility pathways associated with the acquisition and transfer of skills across the migratory circuit, including reskilling, occupational mobility, job jumping, and entrepreneurship.

Jacqueline Maria Hagan is the Robert G. Parr Distinguished Term Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests include international migration, labor markets, gender, religion, and human rights. She is author of Deciding to Be Legal and Migration Miracle.

Ruben Hernandez-Leon is Associate Professor of Sociology at UCLA and the author ofMetropolitan Migrants: The Migration of Urban Mexicans to the United States, and coeditor of NewDestinations: Mexican Immigration in the United States. He is the director of the UCLA Center for Mexican Studies.

Jean-Luc Demonsant is Assistant Professor of Economics at the Toulouse School of Economics. He employs a mixed-methods approach to the study of migration, focusing on migration and remittances, and social status and schooling choices among migrant families.