This project involves two social scientists studying how rural Mexican families use remittance funds from migrant workers in the US. Two anthropologists and an economist will survey households in four peasant villages in Michoacan, Mexico. Using a combination of ethnographic, in-depth interview techniques and econometric surveys of household consumption patterns, the project will study how migration itself changes household values about the sorts of goods consumed. Most studies of migration and consumption assume that migrants have fixed economic needs or targets. This project's analysis of how migration changes the cultural basis of consumption will provide information that will advance our understanding of why people migrate from Mexico to the US. This understanding is important as our two nations draw closer together economically.
