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Mexico's shrinking families could cut flow to U.S.
Thu Feb 19, 2009 10:00pm EST
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By Jason Lange
JALPA, Mexico (Reuters) - Forty years ago, Ramiro Viramontes slept on palm frond mats on a crowded floor with his six brothers and sisters. Unable to find jobs when they grew up, most left Mexico for the United States.
Mexican families sent millions of illegal workers to the United States in the late 20th century as the country's population grew faster than its ability to create jobs.
But now, Mexicans are having many fewer children due to government birth-control campaigns and changing lifestyles. That is causing a deep demographic shift that could turn back the immigration tide.
The average Mexican family went from having seven children in 1960 to two in 2008. Families in Mexico are now slightly smaller than Hispanic families in the United States.
Viramontes, 48, an electrician, is a father of just two.
"We didn't want our kids to go through what we went through. We didn't want them to be tempted to leave," said Viramontes, whose siblings are scattered from California to Massachusetts.
Some 11.4 million people left Mexico between 1970 and 2006, Mexican government demographers say. Almost all went north, in probably the largest wave of immigrants ever from one country to the United States.
The number of people leaving each year appears to have peaked at around 600,000 in 2001, according to researchers at the government's National Population Council, or Conapo.
Fewer have left each year since then, with about 440,000 Mexicans emigrating in 2006. Researchers say the number should keep falling as Mexican population growth slows.
"We have already seen the peak," said Paula Leite, head of demographic research for migration studies at Conapo.
Some experts say the U.S. economic downturn and tighter policing have further stemmed the flow of illegal migrants in the last two years, and also persuaded some Mexicans already in the United States to return home.
DESERT TREKS
Many Mexicans crossed deserts on foot or swam across the Rio Grande to seek jobs in hotels and restaurants, on farms, and in construction. The influx profoundly changed America.
Hispanics are the largest U.S. minority group with growing influence in politics and business. Nearly one in 10 people in the United States claim Mexican heritage.
U.S. authorities are building a 670-mile fence along the border to stop more coming but some researchers say that kind of measure might be overkill. Continued...
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