Combining Current Population Survey samples from November 1979, April 1983, June 1986, and June 1988, all of which included data on country of birth and year of immigration, the authors examine patterns of immigrant employment and unemployment. Human capital was less strongly linked to employment status for immigrant men than for native-born white men, probably because human capital acquired outside the United States was only imperfectly transferable to the U.S. labor market. Immigrants had some initial difficulty finding work, but their employment and unemployment rates quickly attained levels comparable to those of the native-born. There is no evidence that immigrants who arrived in a recession were subjected to a long-term “scarring” effect. Immigrants' labor market status appears to have been somewhat more sensitive to cyclical changes in economic activity than was that of the native-born.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BachuAmora, and O'ConnellMartin. 1984. “Developing Current Fertility Indicators for Foreign Born Women from the Current Population Survey.”Review of Public Data Use, Vol. 12, pp. 185–95.
2.
BorjasGeorge J.1994. “The Economics of Immigration.”Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 32, No. 4 (December), pp. 1667–1718.
3.
ChiswickBarry R.1978. “The Effect of Americanization on the Earnings of Foreign-Born Men.”Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 86, No. 5 (October), pp. 897–922.
4.
ChiswickBarry R.1979. “The Economic Progress of Immigrants: Some Apparently Universal Patterns.” In FellnerWilliam, ed., Contemporary Economic Problems, 1979. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, pp. 357–99.
5.
ChiswickBarry R.1980. An Analysis of the Economic Progress and Impact of Immigrants. Report Prepared for the Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, NTIS PB80–200454, August.
6.
ChiswickBarry R.1982. The Employment of Immigrants in the United States. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute.
ChiswickBarry R.1994. “The Performance of Immigrants in the United States Labor Market.” In GierschHerbert, ed., Economic Aspects of International Migration. Berlin: Springer Verlag, pp. 95–114.
9.
ChiswickBarry R., and HurstMichael E.. 1996. “The Employment, Unemployment, and Unemployment Compensation Benefits of Immigrants.”Research in Employment Policy, Vol. 1.
10.
CohenYinonZachTzippi, and ChiswickBarry R.. 1997. “The Educational Attainment of Immigrants: Changes Over Time.”Quarterly Review of Economics and Finances, forthcoming.
11.
Council of Economic Advisers. 1990. Economic Report of the President, 1990. Washington, D.C.: GPO, February.
12.
DuleepHarriet, and RegetsMark. 1996. “The Elusive Concept of Immigrant Quality: Evidence from 1970–1990.”Urban Institute, Mimeo.
13.
FieldsHarold. 1935. “The Unemployed Foreign-Born.”Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 49, No. 2 (May), pp. 433–541.
14.
FunkhouserEdward, and TrejoStephen J.. 1995. “The Labor Market Skills of Recent Immigrants: Evidence from the CPS.”Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 48, No. 4 (July), pp. 792–811.
15.
HashmiAliya. 1987. Post-Migration Investments in Education by Immigrants in the United States. Ph.D. diss., Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago.
16.
NakamuraAlice, and NakamuraMasao. 1992. “Wage Rates of Immigrant and Native Men in Canada and the United States.” In ChiswickBarry R., ed., Immigration, Language, and Ethnicity: Canada and the United States. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, pp. 145–66.
17.
PasselJeffery S.1985. “Changes in Estimation Procedures in the Current Population Survey Beginning in January 1985.”Employment and Earnings, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 7–11.
18.
PasselJeffery S.1986. “Changes in Estimation Procedures in the Current Population Survey Beginning in January 1986.”Employment and Earnings, Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 7–10.
19.
PasselJeffery S., and WoodrowKaren A.. 1987. “Changes in the Undocumented Alien Population in the United States, 1979–1983.”International Migration Review, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Winter), pp. 1,304–34.
20.
RubinErnest. 1947. Unemployment of Aliens in the United States, 1940. Ph.D. diss., Columbia University.
21.
StarkOded. 1991. The Migration of Labor. Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell.
22.
StewartJames B., and HyclakThomas. 1984. “An Analysis of the Earnings Profiles of Immigrants.”Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 66, No. 2 (May), pp. 292–96.
23.
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. 1996. Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1994. Washington, D.C.: GPO.
24.
WilsonWilliam Julius. 1987. The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
