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The experiences of Puerto Rican women who relocated to the US mainland in latter decades of the twentieth century, is discussed. Sociologist Marixsa Alicea criticizes studies of migrant women that posit 'home' as unilaterally more restrictive than life in the United States and the migrants' host communities as unequivocally 'freeing' or 'liberating' for women.

Examination of the connection between migration, employment and family structure of Puerto Rican women, aged between 15 and 49, in New York revealed that the migration movement was not random and that the factors that result in migration to the mainland have opposite effect on those going back to Puerto Rico. This study proves that migration may increase the population of the mainland.

This paper analyzes the migration of Puerto Rican-born women from the United States to Puerto Rico using longitudinal data. We hypothesize that sojourn length in the United States is a function of both structural (macro-level economic and cultural factors) and behavioral (micro-level life-cycle experiences and personal attributes) variables. We test these hypotheses by estimating a proportional hazards model. The parameter estimates of this model indicate that sojourn length in the United States, and thus the decision to return to Puerto Rico, is a function of wage trends and community characteristics on the mainland plus a number of individual attributes that include education, marriage, and childbirth. Key Words: female migration and circulation, Puerto Rico, structural factors, behavioral factors, proportional hazards model.