IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/ajagec/v97y2015i3p665-679..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why Do Fewer Agricultural Workers Migrate Now?

Author

Listed:
  • Maoyong Fan
  • Susan Gabbard
  • Anita Alves Pena
  • Jeffrey M. Perloff

Abstract

The share of agricultural workers who migrate within the United States has fallen by approximately 60% since the late 1990s. To explain this decline in the migration rate, we estimate annual migration-choice models using data from the National Agricultural Workers Survey for 1989-2009. On average, over the last decade of the sample, one-third of the fall in the migration rate was due to changes in the demographic composition of the workforce, while two-thirds was due to changes in coefficients ("structural" change). In some years, demographic changes were responsible for half of the overall change.

Suggested Citation

  • Maoyong Fan & Susan Gabbard & Anita Alves Pena & Jeffrey M. Perloff, 2015. "Why Do Fewer Agricultural Workers Migrate Now?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 97(3), pages 665-679.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:ajagec:v:97:y:2015:i:3:p:665-679.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ajae/aau115
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Osti, Surendra & Bampasidou, Maria & Fannin, J. Matthew, "undated". "Revisiting Farm efficiency of Rice-Crawfish farmers: Accounting for the H-2A program," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274339, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Marcelo Castillo & Diane Charlton, 2023. "Housing booms and H‐2A agricultural guest worker employment," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(2), pages 709-731, March.
    3. Wang, Sun Ling & Hoppe, Robert A. & Hertz, Thomas & Xu, Shicong, "undated". "Farm Labor, Human Capital, and Agricultural Productivity in the United States," USDA Miscellaneous 323858, United States Department of Agriculture.
    4. Rutledge, Zach & Richards, Timothy & Martin, Philip, "undated". "Adverse Effect Wage Rates and US Farm Wages," 2024 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting, January 5-7, 2024, San Antonio, Texas 339074, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Christiaensen, Luc & Rutledge, Zachariah & Taylor, J. Edward, 2020. "The Future of Work in Agriculture - Some Reflections," Jobs Group Papers, Notes, and Guides 32012537, The World Bank.
    6. Chenarides, Lauren & Richards, Timothy & Rickard, Bradley, 2021. "COVID-19 Impact on Fruit and Vegetable Markets: One Year Later," Working Papers 309965, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    7. Charlton, Diane & Castillo, Marcelo J. & Hertz, Thomas, "undated". "Explaining the Growth in Agricultural Guest Worker Demand," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274171, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    8. Ifft, Jennifer & Jodlowski, Margaret, 2016. "Is ICE Freezing US Agriculture? The Impact of Local Immigration Enforcement on Farm Profitability and Structure," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235950, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    9. Castillo, Marcelo & Charlton, Diane, 2021. "Housing Booms and H-2A Agricultural Guest Worker Employment," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315322, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    10. Lauren Chenarides & Timothy J. Richards & Bradley Rickard, 2021. "COVID‐19 impact on fruit and vegetable markets: One year later," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 69(2), pages 203-214, June.
    11. Bradford L. Barham & Ana P. Melo & Thomas Hertz, 2020. "Earnings, Wages, and Poverty Outcomes of US Farm and Low‐Skill Workers," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(2), pages 307-334, June.
    12. Srabashi Ray & Thomas W. Hertel, 2025. "Effectiveness and Distributional Impacts of Conservation Policies: The Role of Labor Markets," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 88(5), pages 1147-1193, May.
    13. Devadoss, Stephen & Luckstead, Jeff, "undated". "Immigration Policies and Farm Labor," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258435, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Christiaensen, Luc & Rutledge, Zachariah & Taylor, J. Edward, 2021. "Viewpoint: The future of work in agri-food," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    15. Ifft, Jennifer & Jodlowski, Margaret, 2022. "Is ICE freezing US agriculture? Farm-level adjustment to increased local immigration enforcement," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    16. Njuki, Eric, 2021. "Nonlinear weather and climate-induced effects on hired farm labor wages: Evidence from the U.S. Cornbelt," 2021 Annual Meeting, August 1-3, Austin, Texas 313959, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Richards, Timothy J., "undated". "Immigration Reform and Farm Labor Markets," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274165, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    18. Charlton, Diane & Kostandini, Genti, "undated". "How Agricultural Producers Adjust to a Shrinking Farm Labor Supply," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274169, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    19. Zachariah Rutledge & Luc Christiaensen & J. Edward Taylor, 2020. "The Future of Work in Agriculture," World Bank Publications - Reports 33704, The World Bank Group.
    20. Diane Charlton, 2024. "The Farm Workforce Modernization Act and warnings from previous immigration reforms," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(3), pages 934-953, September.
    21. Zach Conrad & Christian J. Peters & Kenneth Chui & Lisa Jahns & Timothy S. Griffin, 2017. "Agricultural Capacity to Increase the Production of Select Fruits and Vegetables in the US: A Geospatial Modeling Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-15, September.
    22. Shrestha, Samyam, 2024. "Seasonal Labor Shortage and the Production and Trade of Labor-Intensive Goods: Evidence from U.S. Agriculture," 2024 Annual Meeting, July 28-30, New Orleans, LA 343996, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    23. repec:ags:aaea22:335904 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. repec:ags:aaea22:335436 is not listed on IDEAS

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:ajagec:v:97:y:2015:i:3:p:665-679.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.