Immigrants in the U.S. Labor Market

Abstract

The general perception of an increased presence of foreign-born workers in the U.S. labor market is well grounded in changes in the U.S. immigration experience. Relative to the population, immigration has increased fivefold since the trough of the 1930s, and in recent years the annual legal inflow has been about 2.2 immigrants per year per thousand population. Even more dramatic is the change in the countries of origin. In the past 15 years, Europe and Canada have declined in importance as sources of immigrants, while Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean have increased in importance. Illegal immigration has also increased. Overall, adult male immigrants earn about the same as the adult male native-born population, but important differences among the foreign born are attributable to duration of residence in the United States, reason for migrating, and country of origin. On arrival, immigrants have low earnings compared with the native born, but with increased length of U.S. residence, their earnings rise. Economic migrants reach earnings equality with the native born when they have been in the United States for about 11 to 15 years. Refugees and tied movers have lower earnings than those who move for economic reasons. Illegal aliens from Mexico have labor market characteristics very similar to those of legal immigrants from Mexico.

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References

1. Since 1959, when Castro came to power, over one million Cubans have immigrated to the United States, and since 1975 over one-half million Southeast Asians have been admitted.

2. Apprehensions dipped below one million in 1980, apparently because of a moratorium on interior enforcement to facilitate taking the 1980 census and because of a diversion of INS resources to register Iranian students and refugees in the Cuban “freedom flotilla.” The data are from U.S. Department of Justice , 1978 Statistical Yearbook: Immigration and Naturalization Service (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1980), Table 23.

3. See, for example, Wayne Cornelius , “Mexican Migration to the United States: The View from Rural Sending Communities,” mimeographed (Cambridge: Migration and Development Study Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1976).

4. Jacob S. Siegel , Jeffrey S. Passel , and J. Gregory Robinson , “Preliminary Review of Existing Studies of Illegal Residents in the United States,” mimeographed (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1980).

5. In 1960, for example, 427,240 Mexicans and 20,000 workers of other nationalities entered the United States on temporary work permits as agricultural laborers. In 1979, less than 14,000 agricultural laborers and woodsmen were admitted, primarily from the West Indies. These data include multiple admissions of the same individuals. U.S. Bureau of the Census , Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1980, 101st ed. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1980), Table 140, p. 96.

6. One needs to be careful to avoid confusing motives for migrating with the preference category used to enter a country. Refugee migration movements often include many economic migrants and tied movers, and economic migrants may use kinship ties as a mechanism for gaining entry into a country.

Barry Stein , “Occupational Adjustment of Refugees: The Vietnamese in the United States,” International Migration Review 13:25-45 (Spring 1979).

idem, An Analysis of the Economic Progress and Impact of Immigrants (Chicago: Department of Economics and Survey Research Laboratory, University of Illinois—Chicago Circle, 1980), chs. 3-12.

9. North , Seven Years Later, pp. 102-104, B-9.

10.

10. Jacob Mincer , “Family Migration Decisions,” Journal of Political Economy, 86: 749-774 (Oct. 1978).

11.

Barry R. Chiswick , “Illegal Aliens in the U.S. Labor Market” (Paper presented at Sixth World Congress, International Economics Association, Mexico City, Aug. 1980).