Arrested Development - Ex-Pats Mexico

That study done in July by Prof Viviana Rojas, for the University of San Antonio is now complete. It is 26 pages, but I had to boost the resolution It surveys/polls American residents in Chapala, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta. I don't know if there is anything earth shattering - people are moving for 'lifestyle' reasons - better lifestyle on a fixed income. I don't know if this necessarily applies to Canadians, who have re-access to 'cradle to grave' free health care if needed (after typically a three month wait).

Anyways - I didn't study it in depth. I was quite surprised the amount people said they were living on was quite low, lower than I expected.

http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/1/9/8/7/pages19873/p19873-1.php

Now here's am interesting one. Of the 161 people surveyed, 28.3% put down that Mexico was not their first choice for retirement destination and 54.5 % of those wrote that the U.S.A. would be their first choice. Huh? So a lot of the Americans (at least 14%) bitching and moaning about how terrible is U.S.A. is, would rather live there?

Gary, I am aware of, and participated in, Ms Rojas latest survey, but I don't think this is it! On p6, it says
"Data for the present study came from a survey conducted by the authors in June, 2004. A non-random sample of 161 retirees participated in the survey. The respondents are qualified to participate in the study if they were born in the U.S., were 55 years or over, and lived in Mexico for at least 6 months. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed in Guadalajara city and two coastal towns in the Chapala Lake area, in the state of Jalisco, Mexico. The questionnaire was distributed through four American organizations based in these locations. These are organizations run by the American community living in these areas. The authors also conducted in-depth interviews with 26 retirees living in these locations. However, the results presented in this paper are confined to results obtained from the survey data only."

I was intrigued how the study could have been completed so quickly, because they just completed the Mazatlán part of the survey last week! I gave my completed survey to Ms Rojas' assistant (a grad student at the University) in Mazatlán at a meeting last Tues. They completed personal interviews the preceding week or 2, while I was out of town. We were told that the results would be published sometime next year. The study you posted was done in Guad and Lake Chapala areas. The current one will include San Miguel and Mazatlán. And, should be very interesting.

I remember in 2004 there was a lot of negativity around Lake Chapala -so that makes sense. Still I don't think the outcome will be too much different - do you? I'm sure Puerto Vallarta is included this time. I first heard of it from this 'smiley face' piece (you know - the type of people who have to put a little smiley face on everything (especially if it relates to tourism) )

http://banderasnews.com/0907/vl-banderasbeat15.htm