TheEconomistJuly 25th 2020 291T
wo kinds of emptyhomes bespeckle
the hills and valleys of central Mexico
and they could not be more different. The
first are the crumbling grey cinder-block
houses of people who left long ago and nev-
er returned. Then there are the dazzling
two-storey mansions built with the dollars
of migrants working in the United States,
which briefly fill with light and laughter
each year when their owners come to visit.
Now another migrant-funded flourish
is appearing in the Mexican countryside.
Over the past five years in Los Haro, a farm-
ing village in the state of Zacatecas, “ridicu-
lous” towering graves have sprouted up in
the local cemetery, says Norma Nava, a
farmer. The migrants who left half a cen-
tury ago are starting to die. Just like their
fancy houses, their mausoleum-style
tombs cast shadows over the humble rest-
ing places of neighbours who never left.
Though still the world’s largest interna-
tional migrant group, the number of Mexi-
cans moving to the United States has been
falling for 20 years. The Mexican popula-
tion there is now shrinking. Mexico’s birth
rate has been falling for decades, so there
are fewer young adults—the age group
most likely to up sticks. And the border has
become far harder and riskier to cross,
which discourages many from trying. From
2007 to 2018, the median age of a Mexican
in the United States rose from 35 to 44.
Covid-19 has caused a flurry of worry
about remittances. They seem to be hold-
ing up for now. But their long-term future
is uncertain. Mexico’s emigrants send back
less as they age. Their American-born chil-
dren are unlikely to pick up the slack after
they are gone. That will hit remittance-de-pendent states. It will also imperil villages
that rely on social and economic ties to
those who departed while young.
To catch the first glimpse of this future,
turn to Zacatecas. The state’s emigrating
tradition is among Mexico’s oldest and
deepest. From 1955 to 1959 one Zacatecan in
16 headed to the United States. Juan Saldi-
var Flores, an 80-year-old in Los Haro, re-
calls how his young son would hear gush-
ing descriptions from uncles over the
phone of Napa Valley in California, to
which nearly all of Los Haro’s migrants
flock. “He reproached me” for staying put,
foredooming him to a birth in Mexico, Mr
Saldivar says. No matter. A few years later
his son had taken off to Napa, where he still
lives and works.
A third of those born in Zacatecas live in
America. But unlike in other states such as
Oaxaca and Veracruz, much of its exodus
came before 1982, qualifying migrants for
an amnesty Ronald Reagan enacted in 1986.
Four-fifths of Zacatecans in the United
States have legal status, compared with a
minority of Mexicans overall, says José
Juan Estrada, the state’s migrants minister.
For all its benefits, migration has im-
posed a demographic cost on the state, ar-
gues Rodolfo García Zamora, an economist
at the Autonomous University of Zacate-
cas. Women outnumber men. Silvia Díaz
Vargas, the mayor of an idyllic villageMigration and Mexico
Youth departs
LOS HARO
Mexico’s emigrants are ageing. That is a challenge for the places they left
The Americas
30 TeleworkfromBarbados?
31 Bello: The Inca trail towards populismAlso in this section