Editing Rural flight (section)

=== Mexico ===
Rural flight in Mexico occurred throughout the 1930s up until the present day. Like other developing nations, the beginning of industrialization in Mexico quickly accelerated the rate of rural flight.<ref name=Arizpe>{{cite journal|last=Arizpe|first=Lourdes|title=The Rural Exodus in Mexico and Mexican Migration to the United States|journal=International Migration Review|date=Winter 1981|volume=15|issue=4|pages=626–649|jstor=2545516|doi=10.2307/2545516|pmid=12265223}}</ref>

In the 1930s, President [[Lázaro Cárdenas|Cardenas]] implemented a series of agricultural reforms that led to massive redistribution of agricultural land among the rural peasants. Some commentators have subsequently dubbed the period from 1940 to 1965 as the "Golden Era for Mexican Migration."<ref name=Arizpe /> During this period, Mexican agriculture grew at an average rate of 5.7% outpacing the natural increase of 3% of the rural population. Concurrently, government policies favoring industrialization led to a massive increase of industrial jobs in the cities. Statistics compiled in [[Mexico City]] demonstrate this trend with over 1.8 million jobs created over the course of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.<ref name=Arizpe /> Young people with schooling were the segment of population most likely to migrate away from rural life to urban life, attracted by the promise of many jobs and a more modern lifestyle as compared to the conservative conditions in rural villages. Additionally, due to the large demand for new workers, many of these jobs had low entrance requirements that also provided on-site job training opening the avenue for [[human migration|migration]] to many rural residents. From 1940 to about 1965, rural flight occurred in a slow, yet steady pace with both agriculture and industry growing concurrently.<ref name=Arizpe />

However, as government policies increasingly favored industry over agriculture, rural conditions began to deteriorate. In 1957, the Mexican government began to regulate the price of maize through massive imports in order to keep low urban food costs.<ref name=Arizpe /> This regulation severely undercut the market price of [[maize]] lowering the profit margins of small farmers. At the same time, the [[Green Revolution]] had entered into Mexican agriculture. Inspired by the work of [[Norman Borlaug]], farmers that employed hybrid seeds and fertilizer supplements were able to double or even triple their yields per acre.<ref>{{cite book|last=Thurow|first=Roger|title=Enough: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty|year=2009|publisher=PublicAffairs|location=New York, NY|author2=Kilman, Scott }}</ref> Unfortunately, these products came at a relatively high cost, out of the reach of many farmers struggling after the devaluation of the price of maize. The combined effects of the maize price regulation and the Green Revolution was the consolidation of small farms into larger estates.<ref name=Shaw>{{cite journal|last=Shaw|first=R. Paul|title=Land Tenure and the Rural Exodus in Latin America|journal=Economic Development and Cultural Change|date=October 1974|volume=23|issue=1|pages=123–132|jstor=1153146|doi=10.1086/450773|s2cid=154768869}}</ref> A 1974 study conducted by Osorio concluded that in 1960, about 50.3% of the individual land plots in Mexico contained less than 5 hectares of land. In contrast, the top 0.5% of estates by land spanned 28.3% of all arable land. As many small farmers lost land, they either migrated to the cities or became migrant workers roving from large estate to large estate. Between 1950 and 1970, the proportion of migrant workers increased from 36.7% to 54% of the total population.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Osorio|first=S.R|title=Estructura Agrariay Desarrollo Agricola en Mexico|journal=Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica|year=1974}}</ref> The centralized pattern of industrial development and government policies overwhelmingly favoring industrialization contributed to massive rural flight in Mexico beginning in the late 1960s until the present day.<ref name=Arizpe />