Social Capital and International Migration from Latin America

Table 2

Variables used in the analysis of first out-migration from five origin contexts in Latin America.

Independent variables	Mexico	Dominican Republic	Nicaragua	Costa Rica	Peru
Forms of capital
Individual social capital
Parent a U.S. migrant	0.063	0.039	0.007	0.007	0.010
U.S. migrant siblings	0.147	0.177	0.083	0.081	0.149
Spouse a U.S. migrant	0.010	0.011	0.006	0.005	0.001
U.S. migrant children	0.062	0.055	0.030	0.022	0.017
Social capital index	0.231	0.235	0.108	0.098	0.149
Community social capital
Percent migrants in community	12.153	12.293	5.603	4.206	1.137
Individual human capital
Education	5.831	7.999	7.420	8.022	12.906
Years of labor force experience	12.895	11.562	14.087	14.368	13.917
Skilled occupation at home	0.076	0.105	0.150	0.159	0.248
Human capital index	0.366	0.404	0.470	0.492	0.638
Migration-specific human capital*
Number of prior trips	1.476	0.792	0.674	0.522	0.046
Years of prior U.S. experience	4.777	6.441	6.740	4.322	1.855
Documentation attained	0.134	0.409	0.161	0.070	0.053
Physical capital
Land	0.139	0.102	0.065	0.114	0.030
Home	0.483	0.313	0.479	0.477	0.531
Business	0.128	0.128	0.233	0.188	0.163
Key control variables
First versus later trip
Took additional trip	0.191	0.054	0.027	0.083	0.053
Cost of migration
Distance to U.S. destination	2201.3	1621.2	2202.8	2960.3	4680.1
Control variables
Community Size
Metro area	0.286	0.223	0.108	0.464	0.721
Town or city	0.230	0.317	0.892	0.277	0.279
Rural village	0.485	0.460	0.000	0.259	0.000
Demographic background
Age	35.416	35.816	35.555	35.690	38.491
Married or in union	0.738	0.677	0.731	0.667	0.696
Number of children under 18	2.090	1.709	1.672	1.348	1.384
Period
Before 1980	0.376	0.310	0.274	0.268	0.323
1980–1989	0.302	0.284	0.265	0.269	0.261
1990–1995	0.169	0.214	0.202	0.197	0.191
After 1996	0.120	0.157	0.226	0.234	0.193
Person years	284,751	15,754	32,544	28,994	15,009

*Defined for those who took at least one trip.