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This article compares the impact of family migrant and destination-specific networks on international and internal migration. We find that migrant networks are more important for international moves than for internal moves and that female networks are more important than male networks for moves within Mexico. For moves to the United States, male migrant networks are more important for prospective male migrants than for female migrants, and female migrant networks lower the odds of male migration, but significantly increase female migration. We suggest that distinguishing the gender composition and destination content of migrant networks deepens our understanding of how cumulative causation affects patterns of Mexican migration.

Common property systems are a critical institution mediating the relationship between population change and environmental outcomes, especially in coastal and marine ecosystems. Evidence from El Salvador; Goa, India; and the Solomon Islands demonstrates how the social structures and institutions stemming from patterns of human migration variably influence environmental out-comes through their effects on common property resource institutions. In each of the case studies, the demographic phenomenon is not population growth or a change in numbers, but an underlying process that affects population size and growth rates: i.e. migration and associated social relations that result from or cause more migration. The following 3 cases studies provide the respective historical and cultural context to show that there is a nonlinear link between population and environment, which when explored reveals the importance of understanding how individuals and communities are embedded in sets of social relations that must be considered when evaluating environmental policies or when determining the causes of environmental degradation.