PROBLEMÁTICA ACTUAL DE LA CONCILIACIÓN LABORAL.

contained members with US migrant experience. Similarly, a survey conducted in a small agricultural town in Michoacan in 1982 revealed that more than three-quarters o f households contained at least one individual who had lived in the US (Alarcon, 1992). A still higher figure of 82 per cent o f households is claimed for another village in Michoacan (Lopez, 1986).

households have individual members whose experience of migration to the US pre-dates the formation of the respondent household. Seventy-six per cent of these migrations originated in Guadalajara, and nine per cent in other urban areas, including Mexico City. Only 15 per cent were initiated in rural areas. This further supports the assertion that urban-based migration is important. Altogether, 33 per cent of the households in the sample have at least one member with experience of US migration, and the majority of these migrations originated in Guadalajara. This compares with the findings of the limited amount of previous research. For instance, in their 1982 survey of a working-class area of Guadalajara, Douglas Massey et al. (1987) concluded that 31 per cent of households had members with US migrant experience.

In 22 per cent of households, either the male or the female household head, or both, have migrated to the US at some stage in their lives, and 16 per cent of household heads in the sample have one or more children who are or who have been migrants to the US. This made for a total of 95 migrant children, 38 per cent of them daughters and 62 per cent sons. Almost half (45 per cent) of the household heads were also said to have either immediate or close'^ relatives with US migration experience, and 42 per cent of respondents mentioned other migrant relatives, either more distantly related or with whom the respondent had lost contact. These data point to the fact that migration to the US occurs across several generations, and also suggests that many urban households are part of, or potentially part of, the social networks which have been seen to perpetuate migration (see, for example, Boyd, 1989; Lomnitz, 1977; Massey, 1986,1990).

Since migration from urban areas of Mexico to the US is generally seen as a relatively new process, the density of migrant networks which exist may at first glance seem surprising. A logical expectation would be that, since urban migration generally has not had the long tradition of rural migration, there has been insufficient time for the establishment, consolidation and expansion of effective migrant networks. Yet this does not appear to be the case - almost half of the household heads in the sample claimed to have relatives with US migrant experience, and of these relative migrants, as they are

13 Immediate relatives include mother, father, sister, brother, but not daughter or son, who are treated as a separate category. Close relatives are defined by the respondent, and typically include cousins, aunts and uncles. The category of close relative excludes those people who fall into the immediate relative category.

henceforth termed, about whom further information was collected (184 in all, 44 per cent of them women, 56 per cent men), 88 per cent were in the US at the time of the survey. This suggests that households in the urban study sites were in fact linked to the US through social networks, which could potentially be used to help further migration in the same manner as that which has been observed with regard to rural-based migration.

There are two explanations for this apparent anomaly. The first is that although the academic recognition of urban migration occurred mainly in the late 1980s/early 1990s, the phenomenon itself dates back to the early 1970s (Briody, 1987; Cornelius, 1990(3,1991). Seven per cent of migrants from migrant households in the sample began their migration 20 or more years ago. Furthermore, 19 per cent of the relative migrants about whom detailed information was collected, and who left from urban areas, migrated 20 or more years a g o '\ The second is that urban migration is linked via social networks to rural migration which may have a longer tradition. In other words, due to the relatively recent development of parts of Guadalajara, including (two of) the study communities, respondent households may retain strong links to kin in rural regions, particularly since nearly half the household heads in the sample were born in rural areas (see below). Speaking to this idea is the fact that 36 per cent of the relative migrants migrated from rural areas. The suggestion is then, that migration from rural areas is linked to, and may facilitate, migration from urban areas through expanding access to social networks in the US.

In the discussion above I have emphasised that the urban study communities are important sources of migrants to the US, thus confirming at the micro-level what has been noted previously at the macro-level. Similarly, the phenomenon of return migration, noted above as an important component of the total flow, is also apparent in the study sites. As mentioned earlier, 13 per cent of households were seen to contain return migrants who had migrated since the formation of the respondent household. In addition, 14 per cent of households had members who had been return migrants before the household was formed. This is indicative of a substantial degree of circularity. Hence, while some migrants may settle more or less permanently in the US, others undertake temporary migration. I suggest

14 The corresponding figure for those who migrated from a rural area was 22 per cent. Of all the