Gender, Bargaining Power, and Migration Decisions in Mexican Families

The prevailing model of migration in transitioning countries conceives of a risk-diversifying household in which members share a coherent set of preferences about the departure of one or more members to work elsewhere. Several decades of ethnographic research have questioned the applicability of this model by revealing the importance of gender hierarchies in family decisions. Some scholars argue that, in many contexts, women have little role in determining the migration behavior of spouses and other family members. We reconsider both models using data from two longitudinal surveys collected in Mexico. We show that Mexican households are heterogeneous in terms of women's decision-making authority and control over resources and that this variation is correlated with the emigration of household members to the United States. Further, a randomized, policy-related increase in women's control over household resources is negatively correlated with the migration of her spouse and children.