Identifying And Measuring the Lifelong Human Capital of "Unskilled" Migrants in the Mexico-US Migratory Circuit

In this article, the authors argue that "unskilled" migrants develop skills over time and can be valuable assets to the receiving country should immigration policies take these "informal skills"  into greater account.

Through a bi-national research project that did interviews with 320 Mexican return migrants, the authors examine the idea that while many migrants are "unskilled" in terms of the formal human capital they bring to the U.S. migratory circuit, the creation of human capital is a lifelong process often "learned away from the classroom."  For the immigrants interviewed, these included not only learning basic English but also technical skills, occupational mobility and entrepreneurship.  As a result, the authors conclude that traditional U.S. immigration policy, which values "skilled" over "unskilled" immigrants, needs to be reevaluated in terms of its definition of "skilled" within a life-long human capital framework. Policy should, according to the authors, match immigrant abilities to specific needs to the US economy. Similarly, the authors suggest that the Mexican government should recognize the potential economic contributions that "return migrants" could bring to the Mexican economy.

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