Population and
Migration Numbers
Since the 1960s, when the Border
Industrialization Program began and maquilas began appearing in the border
cities of Mexico, the population along the border has increased tremendously.
Some of the growth began right away, but later migration patterns created
a new wave of growth. A dramatic population increase occurred along the border
from 1980 to 1995. Much of this increase came as a result of in migration
from central and southern parts of Mexico. Throughout the 1980s, many people
moved from Mexico City to the border (Canales 1999). The New Mexico-Mexico
border population has more than doubled since 1960; now more than 1,819,000
people call the New Mexico-Mexico border home (Shepherd 2002). From 1970 to
1980, Baja California's population grew 91 percent, and from 1980 to 1990,
it grew 41 percent. Juarez had a 45 percent increase in population from 544,496
people in 1980 to 789,522 people in 1990. Matamoros saw a 40.96 percent increase
in population (Pick and Butler 1994). Tijuana, Baja California, and Juarez,
Chihuahua, have two of the largest concentration of maquila plants, with one
third of maquilas located in Juarez. In 1990, seven border cities-Tijuana,
Mexicali, Nogales, Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, and Matamoros-exceeded
100,000 in population (Canales 1999). Maquila Employment Part of this migration
was due to people seeking jobs in the maquilas. The maquila industry employs
over a million people and has an annual business volume of over $37 billion
(Shepherd 2002). From 1979 to 1989, employment in maquilas rose 286 percent,
from 111,365 employees to 429,725 employees (Pick and Butler 1994). Many of
these employees came from the southern Mexican states looking for better employment
opportunities. Business continued to grow on into the 1990's and beyond. Between
January 1995 and October 2000, maquiladora employment grew at an annual rate
of 14.4 percent (Gerber 2001). Michigan-based Delphi Automotive Systems is
one of Mexico's largest maquila employers, with over 80,000 employees in 54
facilities (Lindquist 2001).