Double Disadvantage

2016 ◽  
Vol 666 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Durand ◽  
Douglas S. Massey ◽  
Karen A. Pren
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
The United States ◽  
Undocumented Migrants ◽  
Real Wages ◽  
Illegal Migrants ◽  
Secondary Sector ◽  
Substantial Decline

From 1988 to 2008, the United States’ undocumented population grew from 2 million to 12 million persons. It has since stabilized at around 11 million, a majority of whom are Mexican. As of this writing, some 60 percent of all Mexican immigrants in the United States are in the country illegally. This article analyzes the effect of being undocumented on sector of employment and wages earned in the United States. We show that illegal migrants are disproportionately channeled into the secondary labor market, where they experience a double disadvantage, earning systematically lower wages by virtue of working in the secondary sector and receiving an additional economic penalty because they are undocumented. Mexican immigrants, in particular, experienced a substantial decline in real wages between 1970 and 2010 attributable to their rising share of undocumented migrants in U.S. labor markets during a time when undocumented hiring was criminalized.

Drug Violence, Immigration Enforcement, and Selectivity: Evidence from Mexican Immigrants

2019 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 192-198
Author(s):  
Heriberto Gonzalez-Lozano ◽  
Sandra Orozco-Aleman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigration Enforcement ◽  
Migration Experience ◽  
The Us ◽  
Deterrence Effect ◽  
Drug Violence ◽  
Interior Enforcement

We study how drug violence in Mexico and internal immigration enforcement in the United States affect the selectivity of Mexican immigrants. We find that violence is associated with an increase in English proficiency among immigrants. Furthermore, the deterrence effect of interior enforcement varies: it is associated with increases in the probability of observing undocumented immigrants with prior migration experience, who are English proficient and have higher unobservable abilities. Those factors are associated with a higher probability of finding a job, and higher productivity and earnings in the US labor market.

scholarly journals Tradability and the Labor‐Market Impact of Immigration: Theory and Evidence From the United States

Econometrica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 1071-1112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariel Burstein ◽  
Gordon Hanson ◽  
Lin Tian ◽  
Jonathan Vogel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
Simple Condition ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Real Wages ◽  
Local Labor Market ◽  
Relative Wages ◽  
Theoretical Mechanism ◽  
Using Data

In this paper, we study how occupation (or industry) tradability shapes local labor‐market adjustment to immigration. Theoretically, we derive a simple condition under which the arrival of foreign‐born labor into a region crowds native‐born workers out of (or into) immigrant‐intensive jobs, thus lowering (or raising) relative wages in these occupations, and we explain why this process differs within tradable versus within nontradable activities. Using data for U.S. commuting zones over the period 1980–2012, we find—consistent with our theory—that a local influx of immigrants crowds out employment of native‐born workers in more relative to less immigrant‐intensive nontradable jobs, but has no such effect across tradable occupations. Further analysis of occupation labor payments is consistent with adjustment to immigration within tradables occurring more through changes in output (versus changes in prices) when compared to adjustment within nontradables, thereby confirming our model's theoretical mechanism. We then use the model to explore the quantitative consequences of counterfactual changes in U.S. immigration on real wages at the occupation and region level.

Different Country, Same Work

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Painter ◽  
Matthew R. Sanderson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Capital ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Economic Integration ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Capital Theory ◽  
Specific Knowledge ◽  
Capital Theory

This study builds on recent work investigating the process of migration channeling between analogous sectors of the Mexican and U.S. labor markets. In this study, the authors take up the question of whether channeling between Mexico and the United States promotes immigrants’ economic integration. Drawing on previous research on channeling, and using insights from human capital theory, the authors test the hypothesis that immigrants who are able to use their industry-specific knowledge, skills, and abilities acquired in Mexico within the same industry in the United States achieve higher levels of economic integration. Using a sample of Mexican immigrants from the New Immigrant Survey, we find that industrially channeled immigrants experience a wage premium of over $5,000, on average, in the United States. Our study concludes with a discussion of what industrial channeling means for Mexican immigrants’ broader integration into U.S. society.

scholarly journals Monopsony Power and Guest Worker Programs

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 540-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric M. Gibbons ◽  
Allie Greenman ◽  
Peter Norlander ◽  
Todd Sørensen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Market Competition ◽  
The United States ◽  
Guest Workers ◽  
Guest Worker ◽  
Full Extent ◽  
Monopsony Power ◽  
Program Data

Guest workers on visas in the United States may be unable to quit bad employers due to barriers to mobility and a lack of labor market competition. Using H-1B, H-2A, and H-2B program data, we calculate the concentration of employers in geographically defined labor markets within occupations. We find that many guest workers face moderately or highly concentrated labor markets, based on federal merger scrutiny guidelines, and that concentration generally decreases wages. For example, moving from a market with a Herfindahl-Hirschman Index of zero to a market comprised of two employers lowers H-1B worker wages approximately 10%, and a pure monopsony (one employer) reduces wages by 13%. A simulation shows that wages under pure monopsony could be 47% lower, suggesting that employers do not use the full extent of their monopsony power. Enforcing wage regulations and decreasing barriers to mobility may better address issues of exploitation than antitrust scrutiny alone.

Spiritual Citizenship: Immigrant Religious Participation and the Management of Deportability1

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 404-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Guzman Garcia
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Moral Character ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central American ◽  
Religious Organizations ◽  
Religious Participation ◽  
Undocumented Migrants

This article advances the concept of spiritual citizenship to examine how some religiously active migrants employ religion to see themselves as, and to try to become, less deportable. Drawing from ethnographic observations and interviews with Central American and Mexican immigrants in the United States, I find that undocumented migrants use religion to redefine their own sense of self and to position themselves as spiritual citizens of “good moral character.” This research examines how the priorities of religious organizations can operate in relation to and through a neoliberal context. While religion supports migrants as they endure criminalization, my discussion of spiritual citizenship shows how the benefits of religious participation can also depend on migrants’ willingness to become deserving neoliberal citizens.

Labor Monopsony in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 11-29
Author(s):  
Eric A. Posner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Growth ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Market Power ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
The United States ◽  
Market Concentration ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Low Wages

Most labor markets are monopsonistic, meaning that employers have market power and can suppress wages below the competitive rate. Among the various sources of market power is concentration: the usually small number of employers who compete to offer a type of job to workers. At one time, economists assumed that labor markets were competitive, and largely ignored the phenomenon of labor market concentration. Recent empirical work, relying on newly available databases, has established that labor market concentration is a serious problem in the United States and may account for a wide range of pathologies, including low wages, inequality, and stagnant economic growth.

scholarly journals Employment and Unemployment in the 1930s

1993 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A Margo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Time Series ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Disaggregated Data ◽  
United States Labor Market ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Promising Source

Recent research on labor markets in the 1930s has shifted attention from aggregate to disaggregate time series and towards microeconomic evidence. The paper begins by reviewing the conventional statistics of the United States labor market during the Great Depression and the paradigms to explain them. It then turns to recent studies of employment and unemployment using disaggregated data of various types. The paper concludes with discussions of research on other aspects of labor markets in the 1930s and on a promising source of microdata for future work.

scholarly journals The China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Effects of Import Competition in the United States

2013 ◽  
Vol 103 (6) ◽  
pp. 2121-2168 ◽  
Author(s):  
David H Autor ◽  
David Dorn ◽  
Gordon H Hanson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Labor Force Participation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Manufacturing Industries ◽  
Import Competition ◽  
Local Labor Markets ◽  
Industry Specialization ◽  
Market Effects

We analyze the effect of rising Chinese import competition between 1990 and 2007 on US local labor markets, exploiting cross-market variation in import exposure stemming from initial differences in industry specialization and instrumenting for US imports using changes in Chinese imports by other high-income countries. Rising imports cause higher unemployment, lower labor force participation, and reduced wages in local labor markets that house import-competing manufacturing industries. In our main specification, import competition explains one-quarter of the contemporaneous aggregate decline in US manufacturing employment. Transfer benefits payments for unemployment, disability, retirement, and healthcare also rise sharply in more trade-exposed labor markets. (JEL E24, F14, F16, J23, J31, L60, O47, R12, R23)

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