The Specificity of Mexican Women within Global Care Chains
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14422/mig.24294.034Keywords:
Global Care Chains, migration, intersectionality, transnational labour networksAbstract
This article examines Global Care Chains between Mexico and the United States analysing paid care labour insertion at destination and its association with household migration exposure at origin. Using microdata from the 2024 Current Population Survey (US) and the 2024 National Survey of Occupation and Employment, first quarter (Mexico), multinomial logit models were estimated for the employed population aged 15 and older. Results reveal occupational segmentation by origin: Mexican-born women show a higher probability of entering paid domestic work (10.6 percentage points) than native-born women, while higher educational shifts participation towards professionalised care sectors. In Mexico, remittance receipt—a proxy for migration exposure—is associated with a lower probability of paid domestic care (-1.14 percentage points) and other paid care occupations (-1.41 percentage points). Findings suggest cross-border care circuits may be structured along gender, origin, and education lines, though reflecting statistical associations rather than confirmed causal mechanisms.
Downloads
References
Anastasiadou, A., Zagheni, E., & de Valk, H. A. G. (2025). Including the gender dimension of migration is essential to avoid systematic bias in migration predictions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 122(28), e2500874122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2500874122
Ariza, M. (coord.) (2020). Las emociones en la vida social: Miradas sociológicas. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales.
Burnham, L., & Theodore, N. (2012). Home economics: The invisible and unregulated world of domestic work. National Domestic Workers Alliance.
Castillo Cervantes, M. de J. (2025, October 14). La maternidad transnacional entre mujeres migrantes en tránsito por el sur y centro de México. Contexto UDLAP. https://contexto.udlap.mx/la-maternidad-transnacional-entre-mujeres-migrantes-en-transito-por-el-sur-y-centro-de-mexico/
Cervantes González, J. A., & Ortega, J. A. (2024, May). La emigración mexicana femenina, el ingreso por remesas y la inclusión financiera (Notas de Remesas). Centro de Estudios Monetarios Latinoamericanos. https://www.cemla.org/foroderemesas/notas/2024-01-notas-de-remesas.pdf
Connell, R. (2021). Gender: In world perspective (4th ed.). Polity Press.
Consejo Nacional de Población (CONAPO). (2017). Mexicanos residentes en Estados Unidos. Boletín de Migración Internacional. https://www.gob.mx/conapo/articulos/boletin-mexicanos-residentes-en-estados-unidos-104234
Federici, S. (2020). Beyond the periphery of the skin: Rethinking, remaking, and reclaiming the body in contemporary capitalism. PM Press.
Flood, S., King, M., Rodgers, R., Ruggles, S., & Warren, J. R. (2020). Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, Current Population Survey (Version 7.0) [Data set]. IPUMS. https://doi.org/10.18128/D030.V7.0
Francisco-Menchavez, V. (2018). The labor of care: Filipina migrants and transnational families in the digital age. University of Illinois Press. https://doi.org/10.5622/illinois/9780252041723.001.0001
Fraser, N. (1994). After the family wage: Gender equity and the welfare state. Political Theory, 22(4), 591-618. https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591794022004003
Fraser, N. (2007). Feminist politics in the age of recognition: A two-dimensional approach to gender justice. Studies in Social Justice, 1(1), 23-35. https://doi.org/10.26522/ssj.v1i1.979
Fraser, N. (2022). Cannibal capitalism: How our system is devouring democracy, care, and the planet. Verso.
García, B., & de Oliveira, O. (2007). Trabajo extradoméstico y relaciones de género: Una nueva mirada. In M. A. Gutiérrez (comp.), Género, familias y trabajo: Rupturas y continuidades. Desafíos para la investigación política (pp. 49-87). Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales.
García-Román, J. (2023). Does women’s educational advantage mean a more egalitarian distribution of gender roles? Evidence from dual-earner couples in Spain. Journal of Family Studies, 29(1), 285-305. https://doi.org/10.1080/13229400.2021.1915852
Glenn, E. N. (1992). From servitude to service work: Historical continuities in the racial division of paid reproductive labor. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 18(1), 1-43. https://doi.org/10.1086/494777
Greene, W. H., & Hensher, D. A. (2010). Does scale heterogeneity across individuals matter? An empirical assessment of alternative logit models. Transportation, 37(3), 413-428. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-010-9259-z
Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, E. (2010). Migration, domestic work and affect: A decolonial approach on value and the feminization of labor. Routledge.
Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, E., & Reddock, R. (eds.). (2021). Decolonial perspectives on entangled inequalities: Europe and the Caribbean. Anthem Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv22d4tmb
Hochschild, A. R. (2000). Global care chains and emotional surplus value. In W. Hutton & A. Giddens (eds.), On the edge: Living with global capitalism (pp. 130-146). Jonathan Cape.
Hochschild, A. R. (2014). Global care chains and emotional surplus value. In A. Elliott (ed.), Routledge handbook of emotions and sociology (pp. 127-140). Routledge.
Hook, J., & Nazio, T. (2025). Women’s educational advantage and the gendered division of housework: Couples in France, Germany, Italy and the UK. Journal of Family Research, 37, 81-97. https://doi.org/10.20377/jfr-1168
Li Ng, J. J. (2024). México | Perfil de las y los migrantes mexicanos en Estados Unidos. BBVA Research. https://www.bbvaresearch.com/publicaciones/mexico-perfil-de-las-y-los-migrantes-mexicanos-en-estados-unidos/
López-Estrada, S. (2020). Cuidado a través de la frontera: Trayectorias transfronterizas de cuidados en la región Tijuana-San Diego. Estudios Fronterizos, 21, e044. https://doi.org/10.21670/ref.2002044
Meneses-Medina, P. A. (2023a). Aproximaciones al trabajo de cuidados de las mujeres durante la pandemia del COVID-19. Hallazgos, 20(40), 299-331. https://doi.org/10.15332/2422409x.9265
Meneses-Medina, P. A. (2023b). Reflexiones sobre el papel de las mujeres rurales colombianas en el trabajo. Revista Punto Género, 20, 361-383. https://doi.org/10.5354/2735-7473.2023.73473
Nazareno, J., Yoshioka, E., Adia, A. C., Restar, A., Operario, D., & Choy, C. C. (2021). From imperialism to inpatient care: Work differences of Filipino and White registered nurses in the United States and implications for COVID-19 through an intersectional lens. Gender, Work & Organization, 28(4), 1426-1446. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12657
Organización Internacional para las Migraciones. (n. d.). Género y migración. https://www.migrationdataportal.org/es/themes/genero-y-migracion
Orraca Romano, P. P. (2015). Inmigrantes y trabajadores transfronterizos en la región fronteriza Estados Unidos-México. Frontera Norte, 27(53), 5-34. https://doi.org/10.17428/rfn.v27i53.97
Osterman, P. (2023). The care crisis: How the US care system is failing its elderly and the workers who support them. Russell Sage Foundation.
Parreñas, R. S. (2001). Servants of globalization: Women, migration, and domestic work. Stanford University Press.
Parreñas, R. S. (2021). Unfree: Migrant domestic work in Arab states. Stanford University Press.
Parreñas, R. S., Sabio, G. S., & Pandey, K. (2022). Global care chains. In A. Triandafyllidou (ed.), Routledge handbook of Immigration and Refugee studies (2nd ed., pp. 172-183). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003194316-21
Passel, J., & Krogstad, J. (2024, July 22). What we know about unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-know-about-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/
Pérez Orozco, A. (2010). Cadenas globales de cuidado: ¿Qué son, cómo funcionan y por qué importan? Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones y Capacitación de las Naciones Unidas para la Promoción de la Mujer (UN-INSTRAW).
Pérez Orozco, A. (2014). Subversión feminista de la economía: Aportes para un debate sobre el conflicto capital-vida. Traficantes de Sueños.
Raz-Yurovich, L., & Okun, B. (2024). Are highly educated partners really more gender egalitarian? A couple-level analysis of social class differentials in attitudes and behaviors. Demographic Research, 50, 1005-1038. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2024.50.34
Rivera-Lozada, I. C., Ordonez-Claros, J. M., & Meneses-Medina, P. A. (2026). Global Care Chains and the links of caring: A systematic review. Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 13, 102997. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2026.102997
Romero, M. (2002). Maid in the U.S.A (10th anniversary ed.). Routledge.
Rosero-Ceballos, E. L., & Meneses-Medina, P. A. (2022). Wage discrimination by gender of South American immigrants in the US labour market. Cuadernos de Administración, 38(73), e2611643. https://doi.org/10.25100/cdea.v38i73.11643
Rosero-Ceballos, E. L., Meneses-Medina, P. A., & Rivera-Lozada, I. C. (2025). Data-Global care chain of Mexican women [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17823429
Scott-Jones, D., & Clark, M. L. (1986). The school experiences of Black girls: The interaction of gender, race, and socioeconomic status. Phi Delta Kappan, 67(7), 520-526.
Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación. (2025). El derecho humano a los cuidados: Una agenda en construcción. https://www.scjn.gob.mx/derechos-humanos/sites/default/files/Publicaciones/archivos/2025-06/DH-cuidados-agenda-en-construccion.pdf
Wooldridge, J. M. (2001). Econometric analysis of cross section and panel data. The MIT Press.
Yeates, N. (2004). Global care chains: Critical reflections and lines of enquiry. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 6(3), 369-391. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461674042000235573
Yeates, N. (2012). Global care chains: A state-of-the-art review and future directions in care transnationalization research. Global Networks, 12(2), 135-154. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-0374.2012.00344.x
Yeates, N. (2013). Global care chains. In W. A. Dunaway (ed.), Gendered commodity chains (pp. 175-189). Stanford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780804788960-016
Yeates, N., & Holden, C. (eds.). (2022). Understanding global social policy 660 (3rd ed.). Policy Press. https://doi.org/10.56687/9781447358060
Zou, Y., Wong, M., van der Berg, P. E. W., & Kemperman, A. D. A. M. (2026). Older adults’ out-of-home activity location choice and associations with loneliness: A latent class multinomial logit approach. Cities, 168, 106485. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2025.106485
Published
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The authors of articles published in Migraciones retain the intellectual property rights over their works and grant the journal their distribution and public communication rights, consenting to their publication under a Creative Commons NonCommercial-NoDerivatives-Attribution 4.0 International License. Authors are encouraged to publish their work on the Internet (for example, on institutional or personal pages, repositories, etc.) respecting the conditions of this license and quoting appropriately the original source.
