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Bagheera

Feb 27, 2004, 11:23 AM

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Hello all,

I just joined the Mex Connect forums. Here's a brief introduction and a few questions.

I'm a 27 year old IT professional living in San Diego. I'm taking Spanish courses at a local college. My Spanish reading and writing is passable, though my spoken Spanish is pretty poor. I've traveled extensively in the Baja penninsula but never visited the mainland. I plan to visit Guadalajara this April. I hope the people on this board can help me learn more about Guadalajara and Mexico in general.

Has there been much discussion on the demographics of gringos in Mexico? I've noticed that, in the northern Baja cities (Tijuana and Ensanada), there's a fair mix of age and income ranges among American ex-pats. Of course, those Americans can't really be considered ex-pats, because they live just a twenty-minute drive from San Diego, and most of them spend most of their time in San Diego. Further south, almost all of the ex-pats are retirees. For all the time I've spent driving up and down Highway 1, I never met a foreigner (meaning non-Mexican) who was less than 50 years old. As a Gen. X'er who's considering moving to Mexico, I was quite distressed.

So I wonder if these demographics carry over to the rest of Mexico. Of the Americans and Canadians who choose to live in Mexico, would you say the majority are older retirees? In certain cities, do the gringos generally fit into a particular age or income group? Just looking for your input.

Carol Schmidt

Feb 27, 2004, 2:06 PM

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Re: [Bagheera] First Post Introduction

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San Miguel de Allende is about 70,000 population within the city limits, and the number of gringos living here permanently is estimated between 2500 and 10,000, depending on who you read. I'd guess 5,000, and I'd also guess that at least 4,000 are over 60. I'd guess 4500 are over 50. These are wild guesses since there is no accurate info.

AARP recently did a feature on Mexico which was pretty encouraging for its readership, those over 50, to retire to the gringo centers in Mexico--I've already gotten a few posts from those who didn't know about SMA until the AARP article.

Since you have to be able to prove a steady $1100 or so US income to be able to get an FM3 for residency status, that largely eliminates those who still need to work, i.e., those not retired, i.e, those who are older. Keep reading the various threads and use the search engine on this site to find out more about specific areas.

Carol Schmidt

Ed and Fran

Feb 27, 2004, 3:13 PM

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Re: [Carol Schmidt] First Post Introduction

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Based on my own limited experience I would day that the largest concentration of US / Canadians living south of the border (outside of the Chapala / Ajijic area) is in Mexico City. These are generally working age people who are on overseas assignments for a large multinational corporation or possibly working for a governmental or quasi-governmental organization. I know I ran into a bunch when I lived there and I'm sure I saw only the tip of the iceberg. They don't form a real 'expat community', although they may tend to socialize within a circle of expat aquaintences.

I've never spent any time in Monterrey (and we don't seem to get any traffic from there on the forums) but I would guess that you'd also run into a number of younger expats there doing the same thing.

It’s kind of an either or thing. If you’re an expat living here you’re either retired (in which case you’re likely to be older) or you’re still working. If you’re working your most likely living along the border and commuting back and forth (really working on the other side) or you’re most likely working for a large corp that can justify importing and paying expats. The large corps tend to be centered in Mexico City, Monterrey or Guadajalara. Of course there are exceptions, but I think this generalization will serve as a rough answer to your question of why you haven’t run into many younger expats in your travels. (Obviously you haven’t spent much time in Cancun during spring break J)

Regards

E&F