The Production Structure and its Relation with Border Territories

The economic and social development of a region is linked to its economy’s structure, which comprises the connected relevance of the various production branches and the institutional composition of agents, subjects and organized social clusters (^{Acemoglu, Johnson, & Robinson, 2008}; ^{Rodrik, Subramanian, & Trebbi, 2004}), adding to the characteristics of the territory (^{Engerman, Sokoloff, Urquiola, & Acemoglu, 2002}) and the economic approaches of governmental policies (^{Sachs & Warner, 1995}).

The development processes associate with the multiple times tried Kaldor-Verdoorn law, which states that industrial production activities, especially manufacturing, trigger the economic growth of a region or a country (^{Kaldor, 1966}); mainly those with the most technological composition, owing to the productive links of such economic branches with the rest of the production structure, i.e., industrial, primary sector, trade, and services. These structures, together with the institutional and social fabric (^{Hakansson & Johanson, 1993}; ^{Johannisson, 1995}), may make room for endogenous development (^{Nelson, 1997}) which transcends mere economic growth or development, if the development of capabilities of local actors is promoted (^{Sen, 2001}), human and institutional resources are harnessed, and cultural, identity, and organizational aspects related with the generation of savings and investments are included so that they boost local technologic development (^{Boisier, 2003}).

The heterogeneity and differences in the territories are produced in the intensity of a number of practices by the flows of capital that detonate development and their capacity to create a consistent social fabric, which is more likely to occur in large urban conglomerates and in areas close to the centers of power than in rural zones or in the regions along their borders.

In the areas furthest from the economic and social centers of power, there is preponderance of nonformal economic structures composed of small economic units, not articulated with one another on the territory; their characteristics are low technology, unskilled labor force, and low production, as well as carrying out traditional entrepreneurial practices (^{McLaughlin, 1989}) in which the employer-employee relationship is rather familial—involve relatives, acquaintances or friends—and their workers are neither entitled to labor benefits nor social security. These practices are characterized by income flexibility, labor intensification, low use of technology and poor local regulation (^{Portes & Haller, 2004}).

The production and service units that involve nonformal employment are usually classified as enterprises of self-employed people and those with nonformal employers which, for their part, may be hired by formal enterprises to reduce costs. The above makes room for various sorts of relationships as in the first case survival is at stake, while in the latter, dependent exploitation processes occur.

It is an utterly heterogeneous and vast reality, which may include the participation of the illegal market of crime (smuggling, drugs and human trafficking) that nourishes the “miserableness” of unstable, transit social sectors on the territories (^{Bangasser, 2000}). However, several authors difference the nonformal from the illegal, since the nonformal, unlike the illegal, —which entails preestablished systems of redress and audit— does not usually have its own protection systems proper to organized-crime economies (^{Portes & Haller, 2004}).

The definition of this reality as nonformal economy or nonformal sector of the economy has been extremely discredited by critical economic perspectives such as popular (^{Roig, 2017}) or social solidarity (^{Coraggio, 2011}) economy, given that it makes the structural of unemployment in this financiering capital phase invisible (^{Quijano, 1998}), and does not allow understanding the new realities of the world of labor nor the socioeconomic, cultural, and political specificities and expressions that may take place in popular practices. Even if we agree with these statements (^{Gracia & Horbath Corredor, 2014}), we retake here information from censuses and surveys to locate the expressions of the incorporation of Guatemalan population into the Mexican municipalities in the transborder region when nonformal structures prevail in the creation of infrastructure and services, activities and job posts in the labor market (^{Azuma & Grossman, 2002}; ^{Cervantes Niño, Gutiérrez Garza, & Palacios, 2008}; ^{Loayza & Sugawara, 2009}; ^{Portes & Haller, 2004}), as well as the effects this has on regional economies, many of them associated to labor force mobility.

Taking in migrant labor force from Guatemala into the border municipalities in southern Mexico accompanies a process similar to that of rural-urban migration within the country that, together with the slow growth in the industrial sector (^{Tokman, 1995}), was described by the theory of dual economy. The migration arrival flow and the settlement of migrant population in Mexican localities in MGCBR is not accompanied by capital to massively stimulate the installation of formal enterprises. On the contrary, the creation of small-size production units, specialized on the basis of lacks of the border in what is known as “flexible specialization”, multiplies (^{González, 2005}; ^{OIT, 2005}): suppression of the protectionist regulation of the labor force to decrease social benefits and other labor costs, which fuels and reproduces poverty margins and stimulates marginalization (^{Horbath, 2004}).

The incorporation into this sort of production establishments is not homogeneous in the entire MGCBR due to the labor and spatial segmentation that exists at the border line, and also due to the disparities between the regions of the country that render the border strip a polarized zone regarding development in other areas of the country, e.g., the central region, El Bajío and the norther border. This disparity is the product of globalization that generates regional inequality (^{Huesca Reynoso, 2005}; ^{Ochoa León, 2004}) and favors the channels of migration strips that direct and connect the flows of individuals, goods and natural resources toward Paso del Norte, on the other side of Rio Grande.

In MGCBR, the production structure does not offer good linking niches for migrant labor force. In this way, segmentation favors incorporation into precarious markets, slightly better structured within urban spheres in the region close to the Mexican Pacific such as Tapachula, as compared with localities close to the strip of the Yucatán Peninsula such as the municipalities of Calakmul and Candelaria.

With data from Inegi’s censuses, it is possible to approach the evolution that the nonformal production structure has had, considering retail trade, street selling, freight and passenger transport by means of taxis and other means, repatriation services, domestic and sexual work, and other services provided by households with low or null capital investment and immediate benefits (^{Inegi, 2005}). These measurements, which have improved in concepts and instruments (^{Inegi, 2004}; ^{Negrete Prieto, 2011}), retake, from the labor perspective, the enrolment of laborers into the social security systems, and from the standpoint of production units, identify their registry in the fiscal and taxation system. It is worth mentioning that, from these sources, it is not possible to account for a well-documented and extremely extended phenomenon such as labor itinerancy. However, since our interest is not focused on migration flows themselves, but on the relationship between migrant population and production structures, we refer to the recent work coordinated by ^{Rivera Farfán (2020)}, in which an exhaustive and updated reference is made to the studies on the topic.

Delimitation of MGCBR and Cross-Border Mexican Municipalities

The southern border is created from a broad and diffuse territoriality (^{Ángeles Cruz, 2010}). According to Comisión de Asuntos Fronterizos Sur [Commission for South Border Affairs], this border has a total extension of 1149 kilometers, of which 956 km correspond to the border with Guatemala, and 193 km, with Belize. The area in question is the border with Guatemala, with the departments of San Marcos, Huehuetenango, Quiché, and El Petén, which adjoin the Mexican states of Chiapas, Tabasco, and Campeche. The drawing of this border line dates back to 1823-1824, after the separation from Central America and the incorporation of Chiapas into the Mexican federation (^{Castillo, Toussaint, & Vázquez, 2006}). This incorporation is legitimized in Tratado sobre Límites entre México y Guatemala [Treaty on the Limits between Mexico and Guatemala], on September 27, 1882 (^{SRE, 1930}), in which the limits for both territories were agreed.

Historically, borders intend to reinforce a country’s sovereignty and become a formal recognition space from the demarcation and delimitation of the boundaries. In the Mexican context, the delimitation of the southern border concurs with a “modern” Nation-State, which among other things includes the law on colonization (^{De Vos, 2005}), by virtue of which vast extensions of land became property of desalinizing firms, whose mission was to capitalize “backward” regions. This gave rise to mass migration and the intensification of interactions and cross-border contacts which acquired different connotations according to political events. The 1980 Guatemalan exodus originated by the extremely grave political situation of the country made the Mexican state conceive the idea of “national security” and to “reinforce surveillance mechanisms in the area, though no actual control was accomplished” (^{Kauffer, 2005, p. 10}), which expressed as a number of features after the cooperation agreements derived from Alianza para la Frontera México-Estados Unidos [Alliance for the Mexico-United States Border] in 2002 (^{Emmerich, 2003}). In this way, the modern/global logic that builds and dynamizes the transborder space is observed in dynamics such as the integration of neoliberal projects such as Plan Puebla Panamá [Mesoamerica Integration and Development Project] (^{Torres Torres & Gazca Zamora, 2004}), drug trafficking networks or indigenous resistance (^{Barraza & Gracia, 2020}).

In Map 1, the geographic borders established in the international dividing line, which is straight in some sections, while in others, follows the Suchiate and Usumacinta Rivers or Sierra Madre de Chiapas, as well as the political division of these territories, with the Mexican states on one side, and the Guatemalan departments on the other; as a set, these are the border zone, which comprises 45 municipalities, 22 on Mexico’s side, and 23 on Guatemala’s.

Source: Own elaboration based on data from Secretaría de Planificación y Programación de la Presidencia de la República [Secretariat of Planning and Programming of the Presidency of the Republic of Guatemala] (^{Segeplan, 2006}) and Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía [National Institute of Statistics and Geography] (^{Inegi, 2015}).

Map 1. Border municipalities of Mexico and Guatemala  

On Mexico’s side, there are three border states: Chiapas, Tabasco, and Campeche, with a total of 152 municipalities, of which 22 are part of the borderline with Guatemala. The historic development of the 18 municipalities in the state of Chiapas is closely linked to that of Guatemala owing to their cultural characteristics and the long-term mobility dynamic, with rich ethnical and cultural diversity (^{Castillo & Toussaint, 2015}).

The States of Campeche and Tabasco host two municipalities each, which are framed rather by a political-administrative border imposed by the governments than by a natural boundary. In the state of Chiapas, with a geographically rugged territory, the adjoining municipalities of Motozintla, Mazapa de Madero, Tuxtla Chico, Cacahoatán, and Unión Juárez are part of the prolongation of Sierra Madre de Chiapas. The last three, plus Suchiate, Frontera Hidalgo and Metapa are separated from Guatemala by Suchiate River. For their part, the municipalities of Palenque, Ocosingo, and Benemérito de las Américas are separated from Guatemala by Usumacinta and Negro (Chixoy) Rivers. The rest of the border municipalities is divided by landmarks that simulate an artificial straight line. The state of Campeche is separated from Guatemala by an artificial line in which El Petén tropical forest predominates. The municipalities of Candelaria and Calakmul are hard-to-reach populations with little population and limited communication means. In Tabasco, according to information gathered in Encuesta sobre Migración en la Frontera Sur de México, Emif Sur [Survey on Migration at the Southern Border of Mexico] (^{El Colegio de la Frontera Norte et al., 2010}), there exists an official border point on the municipality of Tenosique, with low demographic density and scarce means of communication.

The demographic dynamic in MGCBR is high and diverse. Information from Emif sur 2019 reports that the return migration flow (legal and deported individuals) amounted to 296 000 crossings from the US to Guatemala, traveling over Mexico, out of which 83 000 were Guatemalan from Quetzaltenango (10.7%) and, fundamentally from Huehuetenango (52.8%), and San Marcos (30.3%) (^{El Colegio de la Frontera Norte et al., 2020}). In these two last departments, migration waves are closely related to coffee production due to the grave situation which between 2013 and 2016 forced pickers to look for employment in other areas and places (^{Dary & Gracia, 2020}).

Methodology and Data Sources

We restricted the analysis exclusively to the Mexican area of the 22 municipalities in MGCBR and use microdata from Censo de Población y Vivienda 2010 [2010 Census on Population and Housing] and from Encuesta Intercensal 2015 [2015 Inter-Censual Survey], both produced by ^{Inegi (2010}, ²⁰¹⁵⁾. To do so, in these databases, the population that stated being born in Guatemala was selected; then, the border municipalities were selected (see Table 1) and with this filter, the special processing to design personalized tables were elaborated to display the total population distributed according to the sex variable, differencing if it was Guatemalan population.

With the information for 2010 and 2015, the demographic growth rates and the participation rates for Guatemalan population in the total population in each municipality were calculated for each year of the term. Another filter was applied to this selection, namely: labor age and economically active population, and more specifically, the population that reported being employed. Later on, the special processing of occupational position was carried out, always contrasting the Guatemalan population with the rest of MGCBR.

To enquire on the labor benefits the Guatemalan population had in the 22 Mexican municipalities, various questions from the census and the survey were used, homologating the labor benefits of year-end bonus, paid vacations, medical service, profit sharing, and Sistema de Ahorro para el Retiro [System for Retirement Savings] or Administradora de Fondos para el Retiro [Retirement Fund Manager].

Finally, the productive activities of the places and establishments into which Guatemalans integrated were revised and new variables were created to homologate the bases of Censo de Población y Vivienda 2010 (^{Inegi, 2010}) and Encuesta Intercensal 2015. Data processing was carried out using the statistic software SPSS version 20, and the exit results were edited on Excel spreadsheets.

Guatemalans’ occupational position in MGCBR

In a listing with 466 occupation categories in Censo de Población y Vivienda 2010 for Mexico,³ there are at least five categories of nonformal activities that represent 4.7% of the total occupation, while such activities are linked to 23.65% of the Guatemalan labor force. In 2010, noticeable is the category “domestic workers”, an occupation that holds 13% of Guatemalan workers, being an activity carried out by between 97 and 99% women, Guatemalan, Mexican as well as Central American; these are followed by street sellers of miscellaneous articles and foods, which as a set account for 6.14% of the Guatemalans employed. While drivers of transport vehicles in bicycle, taqueros and fast-food preparers represent 2.5% of the population born in Guatemala (Table 3).

The second part of Table 3, which corresponds to information from Encuesta Intercensal 2015 for Mexico (^{Inegi, 2015}), also presents the 18 most important occupation categories out of a listing of 163 categories of such survey, which hold 20.97% of employment in MGCBR in the 22 Mexican border municipalities and represent 42.21% of the occupations of Guatemalans. There are at least eight of them that may be identified as nonformal, reaching 2.11% of the total occupation and 11.7% of Guatemalan employment.

The main category of nonformal occupation in 2015 is still domestic workers, with the representation of 11.05% of Guatemalans regarding the total in the category; female participation prevails (more than 97%), not only Guatemalans, but also Mexican and Central Americans. It is followed by two categories: ambulant sellers of foods and others with Guatemalan participation of 7.97 and 3.36%, respectively, as well as that of porters with a proportion of 6.55%. The 18 categories of 2015 (Table 3) close with three nonformal occupation categories: drivers of bicycle and animal-driven transport, vehicle cleaners and guards, and laundry and dry-cleaning workers, with proportions of 6.95, 12.85, and 5.01% of Guatemalan workers, respectively.

There is a persistence of nonformal occupations for Guatemalan population in MGCBR; in a 5-year term there were more nonformal categories among the main occupations in the region, creating a diversification of non-formality in which Guatemalan labor force found spaces to insert into.

Table 4 shows that in MGCBR, 174 561 workers were self-employed in 2010, which means 40.2% of the total, and only 2 287 individuals, who accounted for 1.3%, were Guatemalans, while out of the 134 586 employees or manual workers (31% of the total), i.e., 3 633 people, 2.7%, were Guatemalan. Five years later, this relationship was the contrary, that is, the prevailing occupation was that of employee or manual worker, with 176 216 individuals, who accounted for 39.7% of the total workers, of which 3 905 people, i.e., 2.2%, were Guatemalan, while 116 007 self-employed workers, accounting for 26.1% of the total, of which 2 456 individuals, who represented 2.1%, were from Guatemala. This change from a labor market structure supported on self-employment to another based on employees or manual workers did not equally impact the Guatemalan labor force, for since 2010, the prevailing occupation position was already the latter. However, it is distinguishable that within five years their relative weight reduced 3.2% age points, going from 41.4 to 38.2%.

Even i Table 4 shows that in 2010, there was a concentration of men in self-employment, while women in employees or manual workers, by 2015, male and female employment concentrate in this last among the entire population.

Graph 2 shows the participation of Guatemalan labor force according to sex and occupation position in both years, verifying that both men and women are mainly employees and manual workers, though male labor force prevails for day laborers or hands, also self-employment remains above women’s participation.

Source: Own calculation based on special processing of microdata from Censo de Población y Vivienda 2010 and Encuesta Intercensal 2015 (^{Inegi, 2010}, ²⁰¹⁵).

Graph 2. Guatemalans employed in MGCBR, according to occupation position and sex, 2010 and 2015  

Social benefits for Guatemalans at the municipalities bordering Guatemala

High participation in low-productivity activities is accompanied by scant entitlement to social benefits. In Table 5, it is noticed that few are the cases of Guatemalans who receive all the labor benefits established by the law. Their diversity is decisively important in the Mexican municipalities of MGCBR; in 2010, it is observed that the proportion of Guatemalans who had paid vacations was 25.42%, whereas for the rest (that is, Mexicans and other foreigners) such proportion was 38.06%.

In other sort of benefits, i.e., year-end bonus and medical services, proportions were lower, being 9.33 and 11.12% of Guatemalans, respectively; while the rest of the labor force in MGCBR entitled to these benefits was 33.91 and 30.50%, respectively. It may be thought that such phenomenon is exclusive for the Guatemalan population, nevertheless in Table 5, we can compare the figures for the Guatemalan population and the rest (Mexicans and other foreigners) who received social benefits.

For 2010, it was registered that 6 022 Guatemalans did not receive any sort of social benefits, which accounted for 68.71% of the Guatemalan labor force in the Mexican municipalities of MGCBR. This proportion would grow five years later affecting 6 786 Guatemalans, increasing 12.68% regarding 2010, and accounting for 66.36% of the employed Guatemalans.

Despite the increase concentrated in nominal terms more than relative values, the phenomenon of reduction and loss of social benefits for the labor force in MGCBR seems to have intensified and generalized much more among non-Guatemalan population (Mexicans and other foreigners). In 2010, the employed population which had no benefits whatsoever was 152 409 people, who accounted for 35.89% of the total of non-Guatemalan employed. In 2015, the population with no benefits would reach 206 975 individuals, that is to say, there was an increase of 35.8% regarding 2010, they accounted for 47.83% of the non-Guatemalan employed population in the Mexican municipalities of MGCBR.

Production Activities of the Establishments Where Guatemalans in MGCBR Work

Censo de Población y Vivienda 2010 and Encuesta Intercensal 2015 (Inegi, 2010, 2015) show that the main activity of production units into which Guatemalan labor force inserted was agriculture, with an estimated participation of 3 594 individuals born in Guatemala out of a total of 197 906 people in this activity, which accounted for 1.82% of the labor force in such activity and concentrating 39.8% of Guatemalan employment (Table 6). In 2015, agriculture was still the main activity for Guatemalan population, and in general the labor force in MGCBR. Although the total employed population in the sector would reduce to 162 348 people, the Guatemalan labor force increased to 3 706 individuals, which meant a participation of 2.28%; however, regarding the total of Guatemalans, it would be reduced to 35.52%. Some productive activities that may be catalogued as nonformal are at the top of the listing such as the second entry that in the two years was households with domestic employees, in which Guatemalans had a participation of 11.2% in 2010, which reduced to 8.87% in 2015 (Table 6).

Domestic service activity changed from 14.68% of the Guatemalan labor force in 2010 to 12.19% in 2015. Other nonformal production activities of production units in which there is important participation of Guatemalans are preparation of foods, beverages, and retail sale of groceries, foods, beverages, ice and tobacco, which increased their participation going from 8.43 and 3.92% of Guatemalan employment in 2010 to 8.72 and 3.47% in 2015, respectively. In like manner, there is high participation in ambulant trade activities such as selling groceries, foods, beverages, ice and tobacco with participation of Guatemalan labor force of more than 9% in both years, as well as ambulant sales of tools and hardware, adding to textile goods, fashion jewelry, clothing accessories, and footwear as new expressions and new non-formality niches for Guatemalans with participation of almost 64% in 2015 for the first entry (see Table 6).

Also noticeable are retail sale activities, mainly of textile goods, fashion jewelry, clothing accessories, and footwear, stationary, leisure and other personal use articles. From ambulant sale activities comes an establishing stage with the sale of internet services, printed catalogues, cable TV and similar, in which the worker does not walk the streets, but occupies parts of public spaces. However, this sort of occupation is temporary, unlike retail employments such as stores and fast food restaurants.

To these activities also add Guatemalans who work in automobile and truck repairing and maintenance services, masonry, domestic water systems, electricity works and outdoor works and building and residential construction. Out of all these activities, 25 account for more than 98% of the Guatemalan labor force which, subtracting agriculture, reaches 58.68% in 2010 and 62.65% in 2015, showing the relevance of nonformal production activities as a space of Guatemalans in MGCBR.