Previous research suggests that Mexican female migrants face more barriers
than their male counterparts. However, few studies examine how the educational
characteristics of female migrants differ from those of male migrants and
how selectivity may have changed in the context of evolving gender dynamics in
both countries. This study uses U.S. and Mexican census data from 1960 to 2000
to compare the educational attainments of recent Mexican immigrants to Mexican
nonmigrants. Both male and female immigrants are positively selected—that is,
more educated than nonmigrants in Mexico—and that selectivity increased from
1960 to 2000. Women are more highly selected than men throughout the past four
decades, but earlier female migrants tended to have more education than more recent
female migrants, who tend to come from the middle of the educational distribution.