Motivations of Mexican Workers to Participate
in Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program:
An Empirical Analysis
Lidia Carvajal (UAEM-México)
lecarvajalg@uaemex.mx
Judith Stallmann (MU-USA)
stallmannj@missouri.edu
The authors would like to thank the Mexican Consulate in
Toronto and the United Farm Workers in America for support in
conducting the survey.
Outline

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Introduction
Research Project Objectives (3)
Framework: (Literature review)
Overview of CSAWP
Research design
Motivations to participate in CSAWP
Regression model and results/conclusions
Introduction

Changing fortunes of Mexican agricultural sector

Support industrialization in the 40’s but left behind

Crisis of the 1960s up to now

Declining farm income & Declining demand for Ag.
employment

International migration appears as an escape valve
(skilled and non skilled workers + government:
CSAWP)
Research Project Objectives (3)
• Remittances (not the focus of this paper):
– Estimate the value of the remittances
– How remittances ate used and the economic
multiplier effects they have in their communities
• Impact on farm activities in Mexico
(not the focus of this paper)
• Motivations:
– Learn the motivations for participation.
– How do the regional, individual and family
characteristics of participants influence their
motivations?
Framework
• Off-farm work to increase income (dual jobholding)
• Off-farm income as a diversification strategy
for family income. Literature beginning in
1930s in US; 1980’s another burst of research.
– Migration within the country or to another
country is a diversification strategy
– Income stabilization
• Probability of finding a job combined with higher wage.
Canada program guarantees job. (Migration literature)
• Migration as a social insurance substitute, particularly
with structural adjustment (Sana & Massey, 2000)
Motivations for Migration
(literature review I)
Study
Factor/reason
Technique/
instrument
Origin-Destination
1.Income/Job/
Education
Stark and Taylor,
1989
Massey and
Espinosa, 1997;
Stark and Taylor,
1991
Taylor 1987
Wage differential (+)
Relative deprivation in absence of
migration (+)
Migration networks and experience
(+)
Age2 (-: life cycle, resettle)
Size of family (+)
Number of schooling years on legal
(-)*** and illegal migration (-)
Probit model
Mexico-US
(Pátzcuaro, Mich)
Multinomial logit
Mexico-US
Probit model
Mexico-US
Expected absolute income gains (+)
Motivations for Migration
(literature review II)
Study
Factor/reason
Technique/
instrument
Origin-Destination
2.Security Needs
Sana and Massey,
2000
Social security system
Interviews
Mexico-US
Roberts et al., 1999
Kinship and friendship
In-depth interviews Mexico City-US
Family members in the US on
international (+)*** and national
(-)* migration
Probit regression
Mexico-US (Jal.
Mich., Pue., Coah)
Have a migrant relative in the
destination country (+)***
Have migrants from the same
community in the destination
country (+)***
Logistic regression
Mexico-US (IMSS
survey)
3. Networks
Yunez-Naude, 2001
Massey and GarciaEspaña, 1987
Why Mexico Cooperates with Canada
• Off-farm income represents around 50% of
farm household income
– Also true for the ejido sector
• Remittances are around 60% of income for
10% of Mexican farm households
• Remittances are 85% or more of local income
in some rural communities
• Mexico’s objectives:
– Increase employment and family income
– Increase farming skills of participants
CSAWP Overview
• Established and designed to supply temporary
foreign workers to agricultural producers in Canada
• Started with the Caribbean Commonwealth countries
in 1966
• Canada and Mexico signed Memorandum of
Understanding starting with 203 men in 1974
• In 2013 there were 18,499 Mexican workers in the
program
Mexican Agricultural Workers
Participating in CSAWP
20000
18000
16000
14000
12000
10000
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
18499
16536
10708
6508
5204
203
676
1974
1980
1990
1998
2005
2010
2013
MLSW,2013
The Program has had a quantitative increase of approximately
73 %, between 2005 and 2013 (MLSW,2013).
Selection Criteria for CSAWP
in Mexico
• Agricultural skills
• Education: 3 years minimum; 12 maximum
• Age: Male 22-45/Female 23-40
• Civil status: male married with children/female
with children
•
Healthy
CSAWP Operation in Canada
• Employers must comply the “Canadians first” policy.
• Canadian farmers submit their labour requests
through FARMS which in turn sends the list to the
MLSW in Mexico
• The employer agrees to:
– Hire the worker for a term no less than 240 hrs in six
weeks and up to 8 months
– Provide suitable free accommodation
– Pay a portion of the cost of the flight, other ground
transportation and visa fees
México
Tlaxcala
Guanajuato
Puebla
Morelos
Hidalgo
México
Tlaxcala
Guanajuato
Puebla
Morelos
Hidalgo
Veracruz
Oaxaca
Michoacán
Other
23%
23 %
16%
16 %
7.2%
6.9%
6.6%
6.0%
5.5%
4.9%
4.4%
4.4%
19.5%
Program
23.4%
12.8%
8.6%
12.8%
5.8%
6.6%
Sample
23 %
16 %
7.2%
6.9%
6.6%
6.0%
13
Research Design
• Secondary data (scarse)
• In-depth interviews
• Survey:
- 257 personal interviews with Mexican
agricultural workers in Southern Ontario.
- 76% located in Simcoe, Leamington, Halton,
Hamilton and Bradford;
- Remaining 24% in other six locations (Oakville,
Georgetown, York, Toronto and Niagara)
Southern Ontario
Data collection
• Survey 257 Mexican guest farm-workers in
Southern Ontario in 2006.
• Guest worker support centers and then visited at
their place of work. Snowball technique to
indentify others.
• Demographics
• Motivations—importance ranked on a 5-point
Likert Scale
– Some motivations are captured with more
than one question for a total of 12 questions
Motivations Responses
1
2
3
4
5
Earn
more
income
4.79To
earn
more
income
Improve
standard
living …
4.72 To
enhance
my of
family’s
4.62
4.60
4.58
4.45
3.78
3.44
3.36
2.94
2.63
1.46
Higher wages
thanwages
Mexico in Mexico
Because
of low
Stable
To
earnincome
a stable income
Putput
children
through school
To
my children
through …
Improve
my house
To
improve
my house
Invest
in my
To
invest
infarm
my farm
Learn
newnew
skillsskills
To
learn
Experiences
of others
in Canada
For
experiences
of others
that …
Invest
in business
To
invest
in new opportunities
business …
To see/know
see/know another
country
To
another
country
As a
a way
to Canada
As
waytotoemigrate
emigrate
to Canada
Principal Component Analysis
(Job/Incomes/investment)
Reason for participating in CSAWP
HHW
FS&AI
FA
Because of low wages in Mexico (or
no jobs)
.82
-.115
.071
To earn more income
.76
.042
.075
To earn a stable income
.76
.196
-.117
To enhance my family’s standard of
living
.69
.032
.075
To invest in my farm
.060
.91
-.059
To learn new skills
.045
.90
.179
To put my children through school
.040
.000
.86
To improve my house
.056
.101
.85
Proportion of variation explained
(%)
30.0
22.5
18.1
Literature Compared with
Principal Components Analysis
• Items the literature has as separate motivations
loaded on the same component—more income,
income stability, standard of living.
• Items literature grouped did not load on same
component—standard of living, housing and
children’s education
• Four did not load strongly on any component
–
–
–
–
Invest in business opportunities
Networks--experiences of others in Canada
As a way to emigrate to Canada (they know program)
To see/know another country (trial)
Regression Model
To identify the which characteristics are associated with
the factors to emigrate, we regress:
 j=1,…,3 loaded factor: HHW, FS&AI and FA
i=1,…,253 individuals in the sample and
n=1,…,16 exogenous variables.
Regression Model
Y  α j  β jnREG1  β jnREG3  β jn AGE  βjn Age  β jnEDURESPONDENT  β jnEDUSPOUSESECONDARY 
ji
i
i
i
i
i
i
β jnEDUCSPOUSEHIGH  β jnChild1  β jnChild3  β jnRBE  β jnSBE 
i
i
i
i
i
β jnLENGTHCONTRACT  β jnFARM  β jnDAYLABORIER  β jnCONSTRUCTION  β jnEJIDO  e
i
i
i
i
i
ji
Given that all of the motivations may contribute to the emigration decision, a
system of equations is appropriate.
The Iterative Seemingly Unrelated (ISUR) method, is recommended for
estimation of systems where errors are correlated across equations and it is
useful in cross-sectional data and panel models The correlation coefficient in was
0.92.
Demographic characteristics’ influence
on motivations to participate+
Variable
Constant
Income
0.51
Investment
0.25
Family
-1.10**
Region of origin:
Northern
Southern
Interviewee’s age
-0.10
0.52***
-0.04***
-0.31**
0.20
0.007
0.17
-0.05
-0.01
Spouse’s age
0.036***
-0.01
0.018
Influences on Motivations
• Being from southern region of Mexico more
associated with income than central region
because the southern region is poorer. People
from northern region are less motivated with
investment because they may have more
alternatives to immigrate to the USA instead of
Canada.
• Interviewee’s age negatively associated with
income
• Spouse’s age positively associated with income
Demographic characteristics’ influence
on motivations to participate+
Variable
Migrant’s education
Spouse’s education
Secondary
High school
Economic
dependents
Child1 D=1 less than
2 children
More than 4 children
Income
0.05***
Investment Family
-0.042***
-0.0027
-0.28**
-0.52***
-0.21*
-0.15
0.046
-0.93***
-0.20
0.27
0.12
-0.15
0.37
0.24**
-0.21
0.24
0.03
Results
• Migrants with more education are more
associated with income but less with
investment in the farm than migrants with less
schooling level.
• More educated spouse negatively associated
with income and investment than those with
elementary school.
• More than 4 children, more associated with
investment motivation than 2 to 4 children.
– Less than two children not significantly different
than two to four children on all motivations.
Demographic characteristics’ influence
on motivations to participate+
Variable
Read basic English
Length of Contract
Occupation in
Mexico—Construction
Occupation in
Mexico—Day-laborer
Occupation in
Mexico— Farmer
Land tenancy: ejido
R2
Income
0.31**
-0.11***
Investment Family
-0.27***
0.45***
-0.018
0.10**
-0.02
-0.29
0.76***
0.29
0.18
0.26
-0.17
0.25*
0.16
0.60***
0.30***
0.34
0.31
0.008
0.20
Results
• Reading basic English associated with the three
motivations
– Speaking not statistically significant
• Length of contract is negatively associated with
income and positive with family.
• Construction occupation positively associated
with family than those working in commerce or
industry.
• As expected: those running a farm are more
motivated to migrate because of the interest for
investing in their farm than any body else working
off-farm or in any other economic activity. In
addition those running a farm in the ejido are
positively related with investment.
Future research
• A second objective was to estimate the value
of the remittances and the economic
multiplier effects in their communities.
– Remittances use in order of importance
•
•
•
•
Daily Consumption
House Improvements
School expenses
Investments
• Impact of participation on farm activities in
Mexico
– Say skills they learn do not fit Mexico
Contributions of the paper
• Most of the research on Mexican emigration,
focuses on the US; very little on Canada
– Permanent versus seasonal migration
– Structures that affect the duration of
migration—US vs Canada. May not want to
leave permanently.
– Networks—longer history in US so more networks
than Canada. The formal program may substitute
for a network.
Thank You
Motivations of Mexican Workers to Participate
in Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program:
An Empirical Analysis
Lidia Carvajal (UAEM-México)
lecarvajalg@uaemex.mx
Judith Stallmann (MU-USA)
stallmannj@missouri.edu
The authors would like to thank the Mexican Consulate in
Toronto and the United Farm Workers in America for support in
conducting the survey.