In or out
Legalization and human capital accumulation
Fabio Méndez, Facundo Sepúlveda & Nieves Valdés
Journal of Population Economics, July 2016, Pages 721-756
Abstract:
This paper presents new evidence regarding the effects of legalization on the training of immigrants who were granted legal status through the US Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986. Our findings point to a large increase in the immigrants’ incidence of training relative to comparable groups of natives following legalization. While training gains are higher for males, wage gains are higher for females. We also show that an important part of these changes in labor market outcomes occurs through occupation changes by newly legalized immigrants.
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Does Information Change Attitudes Towards Immigrants? Evidence from Survey Experiments
Alexis Grigorieff, Christopher Roth & Diego Ubfal
University of Oxford Working Paper, April 2016
Abstract:
Many people in the U.S. and in Europe have biased beliefs about immigrants. In this paper, we examine whether providing information about immigrants affects people’s attitude towards them. We first use a large representative cross-country survey experiment with more than 19,000 participants to show that people who are told the actual share of immigrants in their country become less likely to state that there are too many of them. We also conduct an online experiment in the U.S., where we provide information about immigration to half of the participants, before measuring their attitude towards immigrants with self-reported and behavioral outcomes. We find that participants in the treatment group update their beliefs about immigrants, and they donate more money to a pro-immigrant charity. However, their self-reported policy preferences remain broadly unchanged, and they do not become more willing to sign a petition in favor of immigration reform. Interestingly, Republicans and people who are worried about immigration respond more strongly to the information treatment, both in terms of their views on immigrants and their policy preferences. Finally, we also measure people’s self-reported policy preferences, attitudes, and beliefs in a four week follow-up, and we show that the treatment effects persist.
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Immigration Politics and Partisan Realignment: California, Texas, and the 1994 Election
James Monogan & Austin Doctor
State Politics & Policy Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article demonstrates how the party identification of various demographic groups in California and Texas changed in response to the gubernatorial campaigns of Pete Wilson and George W. Bush. Using aggregated time series of Field Poll, Texas Poll, and Gallup data, difference-in-differences results show that Wilson’s embrace of Proposition 187 was followed by significant Hispanic movement toward the Democratic Party in California. Time series analysis substantiates that this action led to a long-term 7.1 percentage point Democratic shift among California’s Hispanics. This suggests that state-level actors can influence partisan coalitions in their state, beyond what would be expected from national-level factors.
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Fear of Ebola: The Influence of Collectivism on Xenophobic Threat Responses
Heejung Kim, David Sherman & John Updegraff
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
In response to the Ebola scare in 2014, many people evinced strong fear and xenophobia. The present study, informed by the pathogen-prevalence hypothesis, tested the influence of individualism and collectivism on xenophobic response to the threat of Ebola. A nationally representative sample of 1,000 Americans completed a survey, indicating their perceptions of their vulnerability to Ebola, ability to protect themselves from Ebola (protection efficacy), and xenophobic tendencies. Overall, the more vulnerable people felt, the more they exhibited xenophobic responses, but this relationship was moderated by individualism and collectivism. The increase in xenophobia associated with increased vulnerability was especially pronounced among people with high individualism scores and those with low collectivism scores. These relationships were mediated by protection efficacy. State-level collectivism had the same moderating effect on the association between perceived vulnerability and xenophobia that individual-level value orientation did. Collectivism — and the set of practices and rituals associated with collectivistic cultures — may serve as psychological protection against the threat of disease.
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Nation-Building Through Compulsory Schooling During the Age of Mass Migration
Oriana Bandiera et al.
London School of Economics Working Paper, January 2016
Abstract:
By the mid-19th century, America was the best educated nation on Earth: significant financial investments in education were being undertaken and the majority of children voluntarily attended public schools. So why did American states start introducing compulsory schooling laws at this point in time? We provide qualitative and quantitative evidence that states adopted compulsory schooling laws as a nation-building tool to instill civic values to the tens of millions of culturally diverse migrants who arrived during the ‘Age of Mass Migration’ between 1850 and 1914. Using state level data, we show the adoption of compulsory schooling laws occurred significantly earlier in states that hosted a subgroup of European migrants with lower exposure to civic values in their home countries. We present IV estimates based on a Bartik-Card instrument to address concerns over endogenous location choices of migrants. We then use cross-county data to show that the same subgroup of European migrants had significantly lower demand for American common schooling pre-compulsion, and so would have been less exposed to the kinds of civic value instilled by the American education system had compulsory schooling not been passed. We thus provide micro-foundations for schooling laws, highlighting the link between mass migration and the endogenous policy responses of American-born voters in receiving states.
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A Declining Farm Workforce: Analysis of Panel Data from Rural Mexico
Diane Charlton & Edward Taylor
American Journal of Agricultural Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Analysis of nationally representative individual-level panel data from 1980 to 2010 reveals a significant negative trend in the agricultural labor supply from rural Mexico, which is the primary source of hired workers for U.S. farms. These findings offer an explanation for the rise over time in U.S. farm wages. Concomitants of the agricultural transformation, including growth in the non-farm economy, falling birth rates, and an increase in rural education, accelerate the transition of rural Mexicans out of farm work. Higher U.S. farm wages and increased border enforcement slow the transition, but the combined impact of these offsetting variables is relatively small. A diminishing farm labor supply has far-reaching implications for farmers, farm labor organizers, rural communities, and agricultural workers.
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Emilio Parrado & Chenoa Flippen
ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, July 2016, Pages 131-147
Abstract:
This article explores the impact of the 2007 recession and immigration enforcement policies on Latin American immigrants’ out-migration from the Durham, North Carolina, area — a new immigrant destination. Drawing on an original ethnosurvey collected in 2011, the analysis assesses the extent of out-migration over time, what precipitated the move, and whether individuals returned to their country of origin or migrated within the United States. We find that out-migration more than doubled after the 2007 recession and that migrants overwhelmingly returned to their home countries. While family considerations and accidents accounted for most of the departures before the recession, economic considerations became the dominant drivers of out-migration after 2007. Deportations also grew in number but accounted for a negligible share of all out-migration. Departures were more prevalent among immigrants from Mexico and those with lower educational attainment. Latin American migration, especially from Mexico, continues to be circular, and deportation is a relatively ineffective strategy for immigrant population control when compared to voluntary returns.
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Policy Popularity: The Arizona Immigration Law
Jeeyoung Park & Helmut Norpoth
Electoral Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
As a maker of policy, a president or a governor invites public approval or disapproval for policy decisions. Public reaction is likely to occur for issues of great salience and clear candidate positions. We focus on immigration policy. Illegal immigration has become a hot issue in recent years, especially in Arizona. The state’s governor took a clear stance in 2010 by signing a law that gives police sweeping powers to deal with illegal immigration (Arizona SB 1070). Using an aggregate time–series model, we find that this action affected gubernatorial approval ratings. Indeed the gain in approval proved enduring enough to turn a losing race for re–election into a victory for Governor Brewer. Using individual–level survey data, we find that presidential approval also was affected by reactions to the Arizona Law among residents of the state. When elected officials take clear stances on a salient issue – Governor Brewer for, President Obama against the law - policy moves approval.
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Cross-Generational Differences in Educational Outcomes in the Second Great Wave of Immigration
Umut Özek & David Figlio
NBER Working Paper, May 2016
Abstract:
We make use of a new data source – matched birth records and longitudinal student records in Florida – to study the degree to which student outcomes differ across successive immigrant generations. Specifically, we investigate whether first, second, and third generation Asian and Hispanic immigrants in Florida perform differently on reading and mathematics tests, and whether they are differentially likely to get into serious trouble in school, to be truant from school, to graduate from high school, or to be ready for college upon high school graduation. We find evidence suggesting that early-arriving first generation immigrants perform better than do second generation immigrants, and second generation immigrants perform better than third generation immigrants. Among first generation immigrants, the earlier the arrival, the better the students tend to perform. These patterns of findings hold for both Asian and Hispanic students, and suggest a general pattern of successively reduced achievement – beyond a transitional period for recent immigrants – in the generations following the generation that immigrated to the United States.
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LEP Language Disability, Immigration Reform, and English-Language Acquisition
Alberto Dávila & Marie Mora
American Economic Review, May 2016, Pages 478-483
Abstract:
Policy might partly shape the English-language acquisition of Hispanics migrating to the U.S. mainland, particularly policies related to limited-English-language disability benefits and immigration reform. Using data from the American Community Survey, we find that island-born Puerto Ricans on the U.S. mainland, as U.S. citizens, may have lower incentives to learn English than Hispanic immigrants because of their higher participation in LEP disability programs. However, among Mexican immigrants, recent immigration reform aimed at interior enforcement might have increased incentives for Mexican immigrants to learn English to reduce their probability of detection, if speaking English proxies for undocumented status.
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The effect of legal status on immigrant wages and occupational skills
Quinn Steigleder & Chad Sparber
Applied Economics Letters, forthcoming
Abstract:
Native and foreign-born workers with a high school degree or less education work in different types of occupations. This article exploits the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act to examine whether legal status causes immigrants to work in occupations that use skills similar to those of natives. Legal status decreases the manual skill intensity of immigrants’ occupations by about two percentiles. It increases communication skill intensity by a similar amount. This reduces the skill gap between Mexican-born and native-born American workers by 11–15%.
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Mexican-American Educational Stagnation: The Role of Family-Structure Change
Richard Neil Turner & Brian Thiede
International Migration Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
High school dropout rates among Mexican Americans decline markedly between the first and second immigrant generations and, consequently, move closer to non-Hispanic white levels. However, the third generation makes little progress in closing the remaining gap with whites despite their parents having more schooling on average than those of the second generation. Utilizing 2007–2013 Current Population Survey data, we examine whether an inter-generational shift away from two-parent families contributes to this educational stagnation. We also consider the effect of changes in sibship size. The analysis involves performing a partial regression decomposition of differences between second- and third-generation Mexican-American adolescents (aged 16–17 years) in the likelihood of having dropped out. We find that Mexican third-generation teens are close to nine percentage points less likely than second-generation peers to live with two parents. The decomposition results suggest that this change in family structure offsets a substantial portion of the negative influence of rising parental education on third-generation dropout risk.
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A longitudinal analysis of cross-border ties and depression for Latino adults
Jacqueline Torres et al.
Social Science & Medicine, July 2016, Pages 111–119
Abstract:
Recent scholarship suggests a significant association between cross-border ties, or ties maintained with family and friends in countries and communities of origin, and the mental health of immigrants and their descendants. To date, this research has been exclusively cross-sectional, precluding conclusions about a causal association between cross-border ties and mental health outcomes. In the present study we undertake a longitudinal analysis of the relationship between cross-border ties and depression measured over a ten-year period for a sample of immigrant and U.S.-born Latinos. Data are from the Sacramento Area Latino Study on Aging (1998–2008), a population-based, prospective study of Latin American-origin adults 60 years and older. We find that cross-border ties reported at baseline were significantly associated with depression in subsequent study waves, even after controlling for the presence of depression at baseline, albeit with substantial differences by gender and nativity. Specifically, communication with family and friends in Latin America and travel to Latin America at baseline were each significantly associated with greater odds of depression for immigrant women, but with lower odds of depression for U.S.-born Latina women over the study period. Travel to Latin America at baseline was significantly associated with lower odds of depression for Latino men across the study. Across all models we control for depressive symptomatology at baseline to account for the reciprocal nature of depressive symptoms and engagement with social ties, including cross-border ties. Our findings suggest that cross-border ties may represent a unique source of both resilience and risk for the long-term mental health of immigrant Latinos and their descendants.
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Lanlan Xu, Maureen Pirog & Edward Vargas
Social Science Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
A large body of literature documents the importance of child support for children's wellbeing, though little is known about the child support behaviors of mixed-status families, a large and rapidly growing population in the United States. In this paper, we use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to investigate the impact of citizenship status on formal and informal child support transfers among a nationally representative sample of parents who have citizen children. Probit regression models and propensity score matching (PSM) estimators show that mixed-status families are significantly less likely to have child support orders and child support receipt compared to their citizen counterparts. We found that mothers' knowledge of the child support system increases the probability of establishing paternity. However, cultural differences in knowledge of and perception about the U.S. child support system between mixed-status families and citizen families do not have an impact on the probability of getting a child support order, child support receipt, or in-kind child support. Rather, institutional factors such as collaborations between welfare agencies and child support enforcement agencies as well as state child support enforcement efforts have a significant impact on formal child support outcomes. The results are robust against different model specifications, measure constructions, and use of datasets. These findings have important policy implications for policy makers and researchers interested in reducing child poverty in complex family structures and underscore the need to revisit child support policies for mixed-status families.
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Margaret Commins & Jeremiah Wills
Social Science Quarterly, forthcoming
Objective: We examined how the preferences of firms in immigrant-heavy industries influence the enactment of immigration policies by states and considered whether political ideology, serving as an interpretive lens for such preferences, moderates the effects of industry influences. Existing hypotheses about immigrant policy predictors were also reevaluated.
Method: We coded all immigration bills enacted for years 2005–2012 and fit multilevel, mixed models to predict state-year counts of beneficial and restrictive policies.
Results: Models showed that increases in GDP and employment within the accommodations industry predicted more beneficial immigrant policies within states. The effect of construction industry variables was conditional on state residents’ political ideology. There was mixed support for extant racial and economic threat and political climate hypotheses.
Conclusion: Firms in sectors heavily dependent on immigrant labor influence state-level immigrant policy. Some of these effects are direct, and some are moderated by state residents’ political beliefs.
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Laura Hickman, Jennifer Wong & Marika Suttorp-Booth
Criminal Justice Policy Review, June 2016, Pages 378-401
Abstract:
The present study examines the long-term recidivism patterns of a group of unauthorized immigrants identified to be at high risk of recidivism. Using a sample of 517 male unauthorized immigrants, we used three measures of recidivism to assess 9-year rearrest differences between unauthorized immigrants who have and who have not been previously removed from the United States. Results indicate that prior removal was a significant risk marker for recidivism, with previously removed immigrants showing a higher likelihood of rearrest, a greater frequency of rearrest, and a more rapid time-to-first rearrest. While the present study does not establish whether previous removal is a consistent indicator of high recidivism, it suggests that this group of unauthorized immigrants may be worthy of review and policy consideration. Much potential value for law enforcement lies in the sharing of federal immigration records with academics to further study the outcomes of unauthorized immigrants.
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Paula Stephan, Chiara Franzoni & Giuseppe Scellato
Industrial and Corporate Change, June 2016, Pages 457-485
Abstract:
We analyze the decisions of foreign-born PhD and postdoctoral trainees in four natural science fields to come to the United States vs. go to another country for training. Data are drawn from the GlobSci survey of research scientists in 16 countries. A major reason individuals report coming to train in the United States is the prestige of its programs and/or career prospects; perceived lifestyle in the United States is a major factor individuals report for training elsewhere. The availability of exchange programs elsewhere is associated with fewer PhD students coming to the United States. The relative unattractiveness of fringe benefits in the United States is associated with going elsewhere for postdoctoral training. Countries that have been nibbling at the US PhD and postdoc share are Australia, Germany, and Switzerland; France and Great Britain have gained appeal in attracting postdocs, but not in attracting PhD students. Canada has made gains in neither.
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Want freedom, will travel: Emigrant self-selection according to institutional quality
Maryam Naghsh Nejad & Andrew Young
European Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigate emigrant self-selection according to institutional quality using up to 3566 observations on bilateral migration flows from 77 countries over the 1990–2000 period. We relate these flows to differences in political and economic institutions. We improve and expand upon previous studies by (i) examining decade-long migration flows that (ii) include flows not only to OECD countries but also to non-OECD countries, also (iii) utilizing an estimation method that takes into account the information in zero value migration flows and (iv) examining not only total migration flows but also college-educated and non-college-educated subsamples separately. We find that economic freedoms are a significant pull factor for potential migrants. Once economic freedoms are controlled for, measures of political institutions do not always enter significantly into our estimations. Results are similar for college- and non-college-educated subsamples. Improvements in legal systems and property rights appear to be the strongest pull factor for potential migrants.
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Mixed-Status Families and WIC Uptake: The Effects of Risk of Deportation on Program Use
Edward Vargas & Maureen Pirog
Social Science Quarterly, forthcoming
Objective: Develop and test measures of risk of deportation and mixed-status families on women, infants, and children (WIC) uptake. Mixed-status is a situation in which some family members are U.S. citizens and other family members are in the United States without proper authorization.
Methods: Estimate a series of logistic regressions to estimate WIC uptake by merging data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Survey with deportation data from U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement.
Results: The findings of this study suggest that risk of deportation is negatively associated with WIC uptake and among mixed-status families; Mexican-origin families are the most sensitive when it comes to deportations and program use.
Conclusion: Our analysis provides a typology and framework to study mixed-status families and evaluate their usage of social services by including an innovative measure of risk of deportation.
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Effects of the Great Recession on the U.S. Agricultural Labor Market
Maoyong Fan, Anita Alves Pena & Jeffrey Perloff
American Journal of Agricultural Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We empirically test four hypotheses regarding differences between agricultural worker earnings (wages and bonuses) during recession and non-recessionary times, between agricultural worker time use during recession and non-recession times, between outcomes for undocumented and documented workers, and between outcomes for agricultural workers versus those working in other sectors of interest. Regression analyses show that the wages of documented (legal) seasonal agricultural workers increased more during the last three recessions than did the wages of undocumented agricultural workers and low-skilled nonagricultural workers. Bonus pay and weekly hours also increased for some workers, suggesting general increases in the financial wellbeing of employed agricultural workers during recessions.