Living in Mexico

Mexico opens more kinds of work to a newcomer than most of the region, drawing people into hospitality, technology, and engineering alike, which makes it one of the easier places here to picture a future. The money is the sticking point, since pay holds at the world's middle and tax stays gentle, but costs run on the higher side, so a typical salary tends to be fully accounted for with little to spare. Hiring still favors those with roots, and while English helps in some fields, Spanish is what makes the difference over the long run.

Mexico is home to the world's third-largest diaspora, with 11.6M people born there now living abroad — and that diaspora is overwhelmingly one journey north: 11.3M of them are in the United States, dwarfing every other destination. The number has actually dipped 5% over the past decade. Immigration runs far smaller, at 1.7M, much of it Americans living in Mexico.