U.S. Return Migration and Gendered Partnership Trajectories in Mexico

From 2010 to 2020, more people have left the United States for Mexico than vice versa, reversing a historical process that had lasted for over 50 years. Yet, return migrants remain understudied. In this paper, we use data from the 2017 and 2025 Survey of Retrospective Demographic Events to examine the sequences of partnership formation from ages 15 to 34 among U.S. return migrants and non-migrants in Mexico. We adopt a life course and gender perspective, given that the motivations, resources, and outcomes that define female and male migration are different. For men, migration reshapes the timing and stability of unions but it does not substantially interfere with union formation. Migrant men tend not to form unions while in the U.S., they postpone entering a union after return. They are also about twice as likely to experience a life course marked by separation compared to non-migrants. For women, migration is not associated with increased separation. Female return migrants are less likely to remain single and more likely to enter early cohabitation, a pattern consistent with family migration and social disadvantage. Our results shed light on the challenges of return migrants’ reintegration, in a context of increasingly restrictive U.S. immigration policies.