Coming and going
The Economic Contribution of Unauthorized Workers: An Industry Analysis
Ryan Edwards & Francesc Ortega
NBER Working Paper, November 2016
Abstract:
This paper provides a quantitative assessment of the economic contribution of unauthorized workers to the U.S. economy, and the potential gains from legalization. We employ a theoretical framework that allows for multiple industries and a heterogeneous workforce in terms of skills and productivity. Capital and labor are the inputs in production and the different types of labor are combined in a multi-nest CES framework that builds on Borjas (2003) and Ottaviano and Peri (2012). The model is calibrated using data on the characteristics of the workforce, including an indicator for imputed unauthorized status (Center for Migration Studies, 2014), and industry output from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Our results show that the economic contribution of unauthorized workers to the U.S. economy is substantial, at approximately 3% of private-sector GDP annually, which amounts to close to $5 trillion over a 10-year period. These effects on production are smaller than the share of unauthorized workers in employment, which is close to 5%. The reason is that unauthorized workers are less skilled and appear to be less productive, on average, than natives and legal immigrants with the same observable skills. We also find that legalization of unauthorized workers would increase their contribution to 3.6% of private-sector GDP. The source of these gains stems from the productivity increase arising from the expanded labor market opportunities for these workers which, in turn, would lead to an increase in capital investment by employers.
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Ted Mouw
U.S. Census Bureau Working Paper, December 2016
Abstract:
Empirical estimates of the effect of immigration on native workers that rely on spatial comparisons have generally found small effects, but have been subject to the criticism that out-migration by native workers dampens the observed effect by spreading it over a larger area. In contrast, studies that rely on variation in immigration across industries, occupations, or education-based skill-levels often report large negative effects, but rely primarily on repeated cross-sectional data sets which also cannot account for the adjustment of native workers over time. In this paper, we use a newly available data set, the Longitudinal Employer Household Data (LEHD), which provides quarterly earnings records, geographic location, and firm and industry identifiers for 97% of all privately employed workers in 29 states. We use this data to analyze the impact of immigration on earnings changes and the mobility response of native workers. Overall, we find that although immigration has a negative effect on the earnings and employment of native workers, and positive effects on their firm, industry, and cross-state mobility, the overall size of the effects is small.
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The Dynamics of State and Local Contexts and Immigration Asylum Hearing Decisions
Daniel Chand, William Schreckhise & Marianne Bowers
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, January 2017, Pages 182-196
Abstract:
Immigration judges (IJs) preside over cases related to immigration law, determining whether an individual should be granted asylum. The few prior studies of IJs have focused on factors of interest to judicial politics scholars, such as characteristics of the judge or applicant in a case. Drawing from public administration literature, we add a new set of factors related to local and state context in which the IJ works. Using multilevel regression analysis, we examine the decisions of 245 IJs made from fiscal years 2009 through 2014. Indeed, it appears context is important. We find IJs grant asylum less often in communities where citizens more often vote Republican and where the local economy is poor. Judges in states where statewide agencies have opted to participate in the restrictive immigration program 287(g) also granted significantly lower percentages of asylum applications. States with Democratic governors and state legislative majorities granted asylum more often, as do IJs working in United States-Mexico border communities. With respect to traditional factors, judges with more experience and those that hear higher percentages of cases involving individuals from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, grant significantly fewer petitions for asylum. Judges who hear high percentages of petitions from applicants with attorneys grant significantly more asylums.
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Florrie Fei-Yin Ng et al.
Child Development, forthcoming
Abstract:
Academic socialization by low-income immigrant mothers from Mainland China was investigated in two studies. Immigrant Chinese mothers of first graders (n = 52; Mage = 38.69) in the United States (Study 1) and kindergartners (n = 86; Mage = 36.81) in Hong Kong (Study 2) tell stories that emphasized achieving the best grade through effort more than did African American (n = 39; Mage = 31.44) and native Hong Kong (n = 76; Mage = 36.64) mothers, respectively. The emphasis on achievement was associated with mothers' heightened discussion on discrimination (Study 1) and beliefs that education promotes upward mobility (Study 2), as well as children's expectations that a story protagonist would receive maternal criticism for being nonpersistent in learning (Study 2).
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Immigration concern and the white/non-white difference in smoking: Group position theory and health
Frank Samson
SSM - Population Health, 2017, Pages 111–120
Abstract:
National data indicate that U.S. whites have a higher prevalence of smoking compared to non-whites. Group position theory and public opinion data suggest racial differences in immigration concern. This study examines whether immigration concern mediates the racial difference in smoking. Drawing on the 2012 General Social Survey, the 2012 American National Election Study, and the 2006 Portraits of American Life Study, immigration concern was associated with smoking, controlling for covariates across all three nationally representative surveys. Mediation analysis indicated that immigration concern partially mediated the higher odds of smoking among whites across all surveys. Immigration concern also presents a possible explanation for the healthy immigrant advantage and Hispanic paradox as they pertain to smoking differences.
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Elyakim Kislev
ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, January 2017, Pages 168-189
Abstract:
This study explores the latest changes in Western European immigration to the United States by integrating several large databases: the U.S. census, the American Community Surveys, the European Social Survey, as well as the Human Development Index and Gini index. Findings show that the number of individuals born in Western Europe but with family origins elsewhere who have been immigrating to and settling in the United States is increasing. I divide the Western European population that immigrates to the United States into seven different subpopulations by their ancestries and explore the characteristics of these populations before and after immigrating to the United States. I also examine their relative success in terms of economic and labor outcomes in America, finding, for example, that some of the least advantaged immigrant groups have some of the best economic outcomes in the United States. The different self-selection and assimilation patterns among these immigrants have implications for U.S. public policy, which we identify and begin to explore.
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Erin Hamilton & Jo Mhairi Hale
Demography, October 2016, Pages 1429–1451
Abstract:
Historically, undocumented Mexican farm workers migrated circularly, leaving family behind in Mexico on short trips to the United States. Scholars have argued that border militarization has disrupted circular migration as the costs of crossing the border lead to longer stays, increased settlement, and changing transnational family practices. Yet, no study has explored changes in the transnational family structures of Mexico-U.S. migrants that span the era of border militarization. Using data from the National Agricultural Workers Survey, we document a dramatic shift away from transnational family life (as measured by location of residence of dependent children) among undocumented Mexican farm workers and a less dramatic shift among documented Mexican farm workers in the United States between 1993 and 2012. These trends are not explained by changes in the sociodemographic characteristics of farm workers or by changing demographic conditions or rising violence in Mexico. One-half of the trend can be accounted for by lengthened duration of stay and increased connections to the United States among the undocumented, but none of the trend is explained by these measures of settlement among the documented, suggesting that some Mexican farm workers adopt new family migration strategies at first migration. Increases in border control are associated with lower likelihood that children reside in Mexico — a finding that holds up to instrumental variable techniques. Our findings confirm the argument that U.S. border militarization — a policy designed to deter undocumented migration — is instead disrupting transnational family life between Mexico and the United States and, in doing so, is creating a permanent population of undocumented migrants and their children in the United States.
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The immigration–unemployment nexus: Do education and Protestantism matter?
Jakob Madsen & Stojanka Andric
Oxford Economic Papers, January 2017, Pages 165-188
Abstract:
Using annual data from 1850 to 2010 for Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, and the USA, this paper examines the impact of immigration and the immigrants’ educational and cultural background on unemployment. Instruments for 27 emigrating countries are used to deal with the feedback effects from unemployment to immigration. The results show that educated immigrants, in particular, and immigrants from Protestant countries significantly reduce unemployment, while poorly educated and non-Protestant immigrants enhance unemployment.
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All Politics Is Local? County Sheriffs and Localized Policies of Immigration Enforcement
Emily Farris & Mirya Holman
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Immigration enforcement and policy making has increasingly devolved to the local level in the United States. American sheriffs present a unique opportunity to evaluate decisions made about immigration policies in the local context. In dealing with immigration concerns in their counties, sheriffs act both within the confines of federal and state mandates and as local policymakers. However, little research comprehensively assesses the role sheriffs play in immigration policy making. Using data from an original, national survey of more than five hundred elected sheriffs in the United States, we provide a broad account of sheriffs’ roles in immigration enforcement and policy making. Our research demonstrates that sheriffs’ ideology and personal characteristics shape their personal attitudes about immigrants. In turn, these attitudes play a key role in influencing local enforcement decisions. Sheriffs’ immigration attitudes relate strongest to checks of the immigration status of witnesses and victims and those stopped for traffic violations or arrested for non-violent crimes. Our results demonstrate the important role of the sheriff in understanding local variation in immigration policy and the connection between the personal preferences of representatives and policy making that can emerge across policy environments and levels of government.
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The second shift: Assimilation in housework time among immigrants
Jisoo Hwang
Review of Economics of the Household, December 2016, Pages 941–959
Abstract:
Using the 2003–2014 American Time Use Survey, this paper studies the assimilation in housework time among married US immigrants. The gender gap in housework time narrows from first to one-point-five to second generation, where assimilation is driven by a decrease in housework time of women, particularly of those from countries with low female labor supply. The findings are robust to including couple’s working hours and number of children, indicating that there is assimilation in the burden of the second shift — household work — in addition to that in immigrants’ labor market outcomes and fertility rates.
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Feodor Gostjev
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current study makes several contributions to the extant literature on the relationship between immigration and neighborhood crime. I review classical and contemporary theories and argue that these theories make contradictory predictions regarding the moderating effects of ethnic heterogeneity on the immigration and crime relationship. Previous immigration and crime studies cannot help adjudicate between these positions because they have only considered diversity as a mediator or a control variable. I use multiple measures of diversity to conduct the first comprehensive study of the moderating effects of ethnic heterogeneity on the immigration and violent crime relationship at the neighborhood level. The results indicate that greater diversity strengthens the protective effect of immigrant residential concentration. These findings contradict the assumptions of classical theories and support the more recent immigration and crime perspectives.
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Association of Skin Color and Generation on Arrests Among Mexican-Origin Latinos
Héctor Alcalá & Mónica Montoya
Race and Justice, forthcoming
Abstract:
Arrest and interaction with the criminal justice system can have negative impacts to health and socioeconomic status. In the United States, Latinos are disproportionately arrested and jailed, when compared to their non-Latino peers. However, Latinos are not a homogeneous group. For example, generation and skin color are two factors that impact the social standing of Latinos in the United States. As a result, the present study tested if the effects of skin color on odds of arrest depended on generation among Mexican-origin Latinos living in the Greater Los Angeles County Area using data from the Immigration and International Mobility in Metropolitan Los Angeles (IIMMLA) survey (N = 1,226). Unadjusted analyses showed that arrest rates increased with generation. Multivariate results revealed that darker skin color was associated with higher odds of arrest, but only for the second generation. These findings suggest that the likelihood of being arrested for Mexican-origin Latinos is not uniform. Observed differences could set the stage for disparities in health and socio-economic status.
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Christy Erving
Social Science Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Few studies examine the co-occurrence of physical and psychiatric health problems (physical-psychiatric comorbidity), and whether these patterns differ across social groups. Using the National Comorbidity Survey-Replication and National Latino and Asian American Study, the current study asks: what are the patterns of physical-psychiatric comorbidity (PPC) between non-Hispanic Whites and Latino subgroups, further differentiated by gender and nativity? Does the PPC measurement approach reveal different patterns across groups compared to when only physical or only psychiatric health problems are the health outcomes of interest? To what extent do sociodemographic characteristics (SES, stress exposure, social support, immigration-related factors) explain PPC differences between groups? Results reveal that compared to U.S.-born non-Hispanic White men, island-born Puerto Rican men experience elevated PPC risk. Mexican and Other Latino women and men experience relatively lower risk of PPC relative to their non-Hispanic White counterparts. Social factors explain some of the health disadvantage of island-born Puerto Rican men, but do not explain the health advantage of Mexicans and Other Latinos.
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Debora Pricila Birgier et al.
International Migration Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
We study the interplay between host countries' characteristics and self-selection patterns in relation to refugees' economic assimilation using a natural experiment in which immigrants from one region migrated to three destinations under similar circumstances. We focus on emigrants fleeing from Argentina and Chile during the military regimes there to the United States, Sweden, and Israel. We find that those refugees show patterns of selection and assimilation similar to those of economic immigrants. Immigrants to the United States and Israel exhibit better selection patterns and consequently faster assimilation than immigrants to Sweden even considering the positive effect of the Swedish market structure.
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Kevin Wallsten & Tatishe Nteta
Politics and Religion, September 2016, Pages 566-604
Abstract:
Recently, a number of influential clergy leaders have declared their support for liberal immigration reforms. Do the pronouncements of religious leaders influence public opinion on immigration? Using data from a survey experiment embedded in the 2012 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we find that exposure to the arguments from high profile religious leaders can compel some individuals to reconsider their views on the immigration. To be more precise, we find that Methodists, Southern Baptists, and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America leaders successfully persuaded respondents who identify with these religious denominations to think differently about a path to citizenship and about the plight of undocumented immigrants. Interestingly, we also uncovered that religiosity matters in different ways for how parishioners from different religious faiths react to messages from their leaders. These findings force us to reconsider the impact that an increasingly strident clergy may be having on public opinion in general and on support for immigration reform in particular.
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Welcoming Cities: Immigration Policy at the Local Government Level
Xi Huang & Cathy Yang Liu
Urban Affairs Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
In the face of continued immigration to the United States and federal policy inertia, many local governments have started to adopt their own immigrant-related policies to cope with the newcomers. Among them, welcoming cities represent a new wave of inclusive local government responses that seeks to incorporate immigrants socially and economically and deviates from the previous policies that focus on law enforcement and legal status. In this article, we explore the rationales behind these cities’ commitment to immigrant integration by examining the effect of theory-based local demographic, economic, political, fiscal, and institutional characteristics and national network organization on local governments’ policy adoption. Our results indicate that cities that have an educated, diverse, and liberal population, are more economically troubled but fiscally sound are more likely to become welcoming cities. The Welcoming America as an umbrella organization also plays an important role in facilitating the welcoming movement.