Up against the wall
Jennifer Wong, Laura Hickman & Marika Suttorp-Booth
Global Crime, forthcoming
Abstract:
The topic of ‘illegal’ immigration is currently the focus of intense ideological and policy debate in the United States. A common assertion is that those without legal immigration status are disproportionately involved in criminal offending relative to other foreign-born populations. The current study examines the long-term recidivism patterns of a group of male removable aliens compared to those foreign-born with legal authorisation to be present in the Unites States. The sample includes 1297 foreign-born males released from the Los Angeles County Jail during a 1-month period in 2002, and the follow-up period extends through 2011. Using three measures of rearrest and a rigorous counterfactual modelling approach, we find no statistically significant differences between the two groups in likelihood, frequency, or timing of first rearrest over 9 years. The findings do not lend support to arguments that removable aliens pose a disproportionate risk of repeat involvement in local criminal justice systems.
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The labor market effects of reducing the number of illegal immigrants
Andri Chassamboulli & Giovanni Peri
Review of Economic Dynamics, forthcoming
Abstract:
A controversial issue in the US is how to reduce the number of illegal immigrants and what effect this would have on the US economy. To answer this question we set up a two-country model with search in labor markets and featuring legal and illegal immigrants among the low skilled. We calibrate it to the US and Mexican economies during the 2000-2010 period. As immigrants – especially illegal ones – have a worse outside option than natives, their wages are lower. Hence, their presence reduces the labor cost of employers who, as a consequence, create more jobs per unemployed when there are more immigrants. Because of such effects our model shows increasing deportation rates and tightening border control weakens low-skilled labor markets, increasing unemployment of native low-skilled workers. Legalization, instead, decreases the unemployment rate of low-skilled natives and increases income per native.
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Epidemiological Paradox or Immigrant Vulnerability? Obesity Among Young Children of Immigrants
Elizabeth Baker, Michael Rendall & Margaret Weden
Demography, August 2015, Pages 1295-1320
Abstract:
According to the “immigrant epidemiological paradox,” immigrants and their children enjoy health advantages over their U.S.-born peers — advantages that diminish with greater acculturation. We investigated child obesity as a potentially significant deviation from this paradox for second-generation immigrant children. We evaluated two alternate measures of mother’s acculturation: age at arrival in the United States and English language proficiency. To obtain sufficient numbers of second-generation immigrant children, we pooled samples across two related, nationally representative surveys. Each included measured (not parent-reported) height and weight of kindergartners. We also estimated models that alternately included and excluded mother’s pre-pregnancy weight status as a predictor. Our findings are opposite to those predicted by the immigrant epidemiological paradox: children of U.S.-born mothers were less likely to be obese than otherwise similar children of foreign-born mothers; and the children of the least-acculturated immigrant mothers, as measured by low English language proficiency, were the most likely to be obese. Foreign-born mothers had lower (healthier) pre-pregnancy weight than U.S.-born mothers, and this was protective against their second-generation children’s obesity. This protection, however, was not sufficiently strong to outweigh factors associated or correlated with the mothers’ linguistic isolation and marginal status as immigrants.
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What Happens to the Careers of European Workers When Immigrants “Take Their Jobs”?
Cristina Cattaneo, Carlo Fiorio & Giovanni Peri
Journal of Human Resources, Summer 2015, Pages 655-693
Abstract:
Following a representative longitudinal sample of native European residents over the period 1995–2001, we identify the effect of the inflows of immigrants on natives’ career, employment, and wages. We control for individual, country-year, occupation group-year, and occupation group-country heterogeneity and shocks, and construct an imputed inflow of the foreign-born population that is exogenous to local demand shocks. We find that native European workers are more likely to move to occupations associated with higher skills and status when a larger number of immigrants enters their labor market. We find no evidence of an increase in their probability of becoming unemployed.
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Do Immigrants Improve the Health of Natives?
Osea Giuntella & Fabrizio Mazzonna
Journal of Health Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper studies the effects of immigration on health. Specifically, we merge information on individual characteristics from the German Socio-Economic Panel (1984-2009) with detailed local labour market characteristics, and we then exploit the longitudinal component of the data to determine how immigration affects the health of both immigrants and natives over time. We find that immigrants to Germany are healthier than natives upon their arrival (the healthy immigrant effect) but that immigrants’ health deteriorates over time. We show that the convergence in health is heterogeneous across immigrants and occurs more rapidly among those working in more physically demanding jobs. Because immigrants are significantly more likely to work in strenuous occupations, we investigate whether changes in the spatial concentration of immigrants affect the health of the native population. Our results suggest that immigration reduces the likelihood that residents will report negative health outcomes. We show that these effects are concentrated in blue-collar occupations and are stronger among low-educated natives. Improvements in natives’ average working conditions and workloads help explain the positive effects of immigration on the health of the native population.
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Does the Chinese Diaspora Speed Up Growth in Host Countries?
Jan Priebe & Robert Rudolf
World Development, December 2015, Pages 249–262
Abstract:
We compiled a new, enhanced data set on the population share of overseas Chinese covering 147 countries over the period 1970–2010. Linking the migration and economic growth literature, this article attempts to estimate the impact of the Chinese diaspora on economic growth in host countries. Regression results from both “Barro-type” and dynamic panel data models suggest that a country’s initial relative endowment with overseas Chinese is positively related to subsequent growth. Results are robust to a number of sensitivity tests. The effect is transmitted via increased trade openness, enhanced investment, and general TFP effects.
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Slesh Shrestha
Economic Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
The development impacts of emigration are largely determined by the education of those who stay behind. Departure of workers leads to a direct loss of human capital, but opportunities for emigration also raise expected returns to education. I examine these effects by considering the introduction of education as a selection criterion to recruit Nepalese men in the British Army. This change raised educational investments by 1.15 years and increased the average education of men living in Nepal even after allowing for emigration. Despite not being selected in the British Army or emigrating elsewhere, these non-migrants benefited directly from additional schooling.
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Remittances and the Wage Impact of Immigration
William Olney
Journal of Human Resources, Summer 2015, Pages 694-727
Abstract:
This paper examines how the outflow of remittances affect the wages of native workers. The model shows that the wage impact of immigration depends on the competing effects of an increase in labor market competition and an increase in the consumer base. Immigrant remittances provide a unique way of isolating this latter effect because they reduce the consumer base but not the workforce. The predictions of the model are tested using an unusually rich German data set that has detailed information on remittances and wages. As expected, the results indicate that a 1 percent increase in remittances depress the wages of native workers by 0.06 percent. Furthermore, remittances predominantly affect workers in nontraded industries that are more reliant on domestic consumption.
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Rocio Burgos-Cienfuegos et al.
Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, August 2015, Pages 365-397
Abstract:
We explored whether Latino first-generation college students would experience cross-cultural value conflicts as a result of the mismatch between more collectivistic values learned at home and more individualistic practices of their peers in a multiethnic college setting. Culturally structured conflict resolution styles were also explored. Participants completed a survey and thereafter engaged in a structured group discussion. Group discussions indicated that 57% of students experienced cross-cultural peer-peer value conflicts in which they had a more collectivistic approach to peer relations, while their roommates had a more individualistic approach. More positive peer relationships resulted from confrontational styles of conflict resolution (a facet of individualistic culture) than from implicit forms of communication (a facet of collectivistic culture). Peer-peer interactions are important because, upon transitioning to college, Latino students are exposed to diverse cultures that can impact their social life in higher education and therefore their college adjustment.
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U.S. Border Enforcement and Mexican Immigrant Location Choice
Sarah Bohn & Todd Pugatch
Demography, forthcoming
Abstract:
We provide the first evidence on the causal effect of border enforcement on the full spatial distribution of Mexican immigrants to the United States. We address the endogeneity of border enforcement with an instrumental variables strategy based on administrative delays in budgetary allocations for border security. We find that 1,000 additional Border Patrol officers assigned to prevent unauthorized migrants from entering a U.S. state decreases that state’s share of Mexican immigrants by 21.9 %. Our estimates imply that if border enforcement had not changed from 1994 to 2011, the shares of Mexican immigrants locating in California and Texas would each be 8 percentage points greater, with all other states’ shares lower or unchanged.
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Race, Immigration, and Exogamy among the Native-born: Variation across Communities
Mary Campbell & Molly Martin
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, forthcoming
Abstract:
Did rising immigration levels change racial and ethnic exogamy patterns for young adults in the United States? Adding local demographics to Qian and Lichter’s national results, the authors examine the relationship between the sizes of the local immigrant populations in urban and rural areas and U.S.-born individuals’ exogamy patterns in heterosexual unions, controlling for the areas’ racial compositions. Using 2000 census race, ethnicity, and nativity data and log-linear models, the authors test hypotheses about the relationship between high levels of immigration from Asia and Latin America and endogamy rates for U.S.-born Latino/as and Asians. They find that U.S.-born Latino/as and Asians are not consistently more endogamous in high-immigrant areas once population composition differences across local areas are controlled. Surprisingly, U.S.-born Blacks and Native Americans are significantly less endogamous in areas with more immigrants.
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Skin Tone, Race/Ethnicity, and Wealth Inequality among New Immigrants
Matthew Painter, Malcolm Holmes & Jenna Bateman
Social Forces, forthcoming
Abstract:
Immigrants’ racial/ethnic status has profound implications for their lives in the United States, including its influence on their ability to improve their financial well-being. We examine a particular type of financial well-being — wealth or net worth — and consider how both skin tone and race/ethnicity contribute to wealth inequality. To assess these dual influences, we use the New Immigrant Survey and the recently developed preference for whiteness hypothesis to argue that darker-skinned immigrants will have lower levels of wealth and will be less likely to own certain assets. Results generally support the hypothesis with the strongest evidence apparent in the full sample and among Asian immigrants. Overall, the results illuminate how immigrants with a racial/ethnic minority status and a darker complexion encounter multiple forms of disadvantage relative to white and/or lighter-skinned immigrants.
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Immigrant Networks and the Take-Up of Disability Programs: Evidence from the United States
Delia Furtado & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos
Economic Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine the role of ethnic networks in disability program take-up among working-age immigrants in the United States. Controlling for country of origin and area of residence fixed effects, immigrants residing amid a large number of co-ethnics are more likely to receive disability payments when their ethnic groups have higher take-up rates. Differences in satisfying the work history or income and asset requirements of the disability programs explain part of this relationship, but social norms also play an important role. Information sharing appears influential for Supplemental Security Income take-up but not for Social Security Disability Income.
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Happy Moves? Assessing the Link between Life Satisfaction and Emigration Intentions
Artjoms Ivlevs
Kyklos, August 2015, Pages 335–356
Abstract:
It has been shown that higher levels of subjective well-being lead to greater work productivity, better physical health and enhanced social skills. Because of these positive externalities, policymakers across the world should be interested in attracting and retaining happy and life-satisfied migrants. This paper studies the link between life satisfaction and one's intentions to move abroad. Using survey data from 35 European and Central Asian countries, I find a U-shaped association between life satisfaction and emigration intentions: it is the most and the least life-satisfied people who are the most likely to express intentions to emigrate. This result is found in countries with different levels of economic development and institutional quality. The instrumental variable results suggest that higher levels of life satisfaction have a positive effect on the probability of reporting intentions to migrate. The findings of this paper raise concerns about possible ‘happiness drain’ in migrant-sending countries.
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Sherrilyn Billger & Carlos Lamarche
Empirical Economics, September 2015, Pages 705-750
Abstract:
This paper uses longitudinal data from the PSID and the BHPS to examine native-immigrant earnings differentials throughout the conditional wage distribution, while controlling for individual heterogeneity. We employ quantile regression techniques to estimate conditional quantile functions for longitudinal data. We show that country of origin, country of residence, and gender are all important determinants of earnings differentials. A large wage penalty occurs in the USA among female immigrants from non-English speaking countries, and the penalty is most negative among the lowest (conditional) wages. On the other hand, women in Britain experience hardly any immigrant-native wage differential. We find evidence suggesting that immigrant men in the USA earn lower wages, while British workers emigrating from English-speaking countries earn higher wages. The various differentials we report in this paper reveal the value of employing panel data quantile regression in estimating and better understanding immigrant wage effects.
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Tim Reeskens & Wim van Oorschot
European Sociological Review, August 2015, Pages 433-445
Abstract:
An oft-heard concern about the sustainability of the welfare state is that generous social welfare provisions serve as an important pull factor in immigrants’ consideration of their preferred country of destination. With their accumulated social risks, immigrants are averagely more likely to claim welfare benefits, suggesting that generous provisions reinforce migration flows, and that migrants benefit more from welfare than they contribute to it. Yet, little is known about what immigrants actually think about government support to ensure a reasonable standard of living. To study immigrants’ ideas about the welfare state, we analyse the 2008 ‘Welfare Attitudes’ module of the European Social Survey. Our analysis shows that, although immigrants have somewhat stronger pro-welfare opinions than non-immigrants, these are largely explained by their more disadvantaged position in society and their more depressed opinions of the social malaise taking place in their receptive society. Furthermore, much to our surprise, we find that immigrants’ views on welfare closely follow those of the non-migrant population of the country they are living in, suggesting strong social integration at the opinion level.
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Edward Vargas
Children and Youth Services Review, October 2015, Pages 83–89
Abstract:
As Congress priorities the immigration debate on increased border security, the fate of an estimated 11 million undocumented citizens remains uncertain. Stuck in between partisan politics and practical solutions are mixed-status families in which some members of the family are U.S. citizens while other members are in the country without proper authorization. This paper, examines the relationship between risk of deportation and Medicaid use drawing from a nationally sample of mothers from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Survey. These data are then merged with data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to create a contextual risk of deportation measure. Findings suggest that an increase in risk of deportation is associated with a decrease in Medicaid use. The implications of this work have tremendous impacts for health service providers and policy makers interested in preventing and reducing health disparities in complex family structures.
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Testing the Parent–Adolescent Acculturation Discrepancy Hypothesis: A Five-Wave Longitudinal Study
Seth Schwartz et al.
Journal of Research on Adolescence, forthcoming
Abstract:
This 2½-year, 5-wave longitudinal study tests the hypothesis that acculturation discrepancies between Hispanic immigrant parents and adolescents would lead to compromised family functioning, which would then lead to problematic adolescent outcomes. Recent-immigrant Hispanic parent–adolescent dyads (N = 302) completed measures of acculturation and family functioning. Adolescents completed measures of positive youth development, depressive symptoms, problem behavior, and substance use. Results indicated that Time 1 discrepancies in Hispanic culture retention, and linear trajectories in some of these discrepancies, negatively predicted adolescent positive youth development, and positively predicted adolescent depressive symptoms and binge drinking, indirectly through adolescent-reported family functioning. The vast majority of effects were mediated rather than direct, supporting the acculturation discrepancy hypothesis. Implications for further research and intervention are discussed.
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Bram Lancee & Oriane Sarrasin
European Sociological Review, August 2015, Pages 490-501
Abstract:
While previous studies unequivocally show that education and attitudes towards immigrants correlate, the underlying mechanisms remain debated. The liberalization effect claims that education fosters egalitarian values and analytic skills, which translate into positive attitudes. Additionally, the higher educated are less likely to face economic competition from immigrants. However, research on socialization shows that political attitudes develop early in life. Thus, there may be self-selection into education. While there is reason to expect both education and selection effects, previous work has relied exclusively on cross-sectional analyses, thus confounding the two mechanisms. Drawing on the Swiss Household Panel, we find that virtually all variation in education disappears when only within-individual variance is modelled. While we find strong differences in attitudes towards immigrants between individuals, we observe little change in attitudes as individuals pass through education. Furthermore, our findings show that when entering the labour market, higher educated individuals also become more likely to oppose immigrants. This suggests that differences between educational groups are mostly due to selection effects, and not to the alleged liberalizing effect of education. We conclude that future research on attitudes towards immigrants would greatly benefit from addressing selection into education.