The desire of Mexicans wanting to emigrate stands at about 20% of the population. That share is not greatly different from many other countries. But the share of Mexican workforce age working residing outside Mexica is high – 10%, of which almost all in the United States. Mexico is part of the American basin of workers, mostly with little formal education.

It’s unclear whether improvement in education status translates into lower propensity to emigrate.  Costa Rica’s high school graduation rate (60%) is higher than Mexico’s (40%) but Costa Ricans are more inclined to emigrate.  That said, a look at progress in education in Mexico is worth a look.

In 2000, only 20% of Mexican adults had completed what is called high school in the United States. Now, 40%. A lower education threshold also saw substantial gains, from under 70% to around 90%.

Higher education is almost entirely at state colleges. Attendence grew about 50% between 2011 and 2022.   About a half million graduate a year. (Putting that in perspective, that 500K is equivalent to somewhat less than 1% of the total workforce of Mexicans, in the U.S the annual number of graduates is about 1.5% of the work force. (But the HS graduation rate in the U.S. is above 90%.) This flows a lot more advanced educated persons into the Mexican workforce than in the past, but the absorption rate is low – to be sure, the wages are higher than for high school graduates by the quality of work is the lowest among all OECD countries. Half of college graduates are overqualified for their jobs.

If access to migration to the U.S. were easier, would college educated Mexicans wish to migrate? Would they have a better chance of getting work for which they are qualified, considering both wage and desired social status? Compared to less educated, who take many jobs Americans don’t want? The median wage of Mexican in the U.S. is $19 vs the national median wage of $27.