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).