Data Overview

The MMP Database is the result of an ongoing multidisciplinary study of Mexican Migration to the United States. It contains data gathered since 1982 in surveys administered every year in Mexico and in the United States. The MMP Database (MMP174) is currently one of the most concise and vast data set of its kind in existence. As of February 2021, the MMP174 consists of:

Our datasets are divided into two type of files: Core Files and Supplemental Files. Core files are the result of all the information gathered through the Ethnosurvey. Supplemental files, on the other hand, are built using external sources such as the Mexican census and DHS statistical yearbooks.

Core Files

The MMP174 Database contains an initial file with general demographic and migratory information for each member of a surveyed household (PERS). More detailed information on each migratory experience of all heads of household is presented in a second file (MIG). Starting with community 120, whenever the household head was not a U.S. migrant, the MMP started collecting information about another person in the household with U.S. migration experience (MIGOTHER). Starting in 2005, the MMP is gathering detailed information on migratory experience of all household heads who have migrated Canada (CNMIG). More general characteristics of the household, its members, and other holdings is reserved for a fourth file (HOUSE). Lastly, detailed labor histories for each head of household and each spouse complete the set of data files (LIFE and SPOUSE, respectively).

Supplemental Files

In addition to the six primary data files, supplementary data files have been created to provide researchers with additional information that may be useful in analyses of migration. For instance, for all the communities surveyed by the Mexican Migration Project, data at the community and municipio level have been collected and compiled in the file: COMMUN. Also, we have made available the annual prevalence ratios per community from 1940 up to the survey year under the file PRATIO.

Other two supplementary data files - NATLYEAR & NATLHIST - are available to you as well. These two dataset contain several variables that have been used by MMP researchers in the past to assess various factors contributing to migration between Mexico and the U.S.

Also, we are now offering a supplementary data file at the state level, which contains detailed environmental data: ENVIRONS. Some of the variables in this dataset are: type of weather, land use and degradation, and historyc monthly rain (from 1941 to 2004).