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Immigration, Employment, and Public Policies

Paper Session

Friday, Jan. 3, 2025 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM (PST)

Hilton San Francisco Union Square, Union Square 21
Hosted By: American Society of Hispanic Economists
  • Chair: Francisca Antman, University of Colorado-Boulder

Immigrant Age at Arrival and the Intergenerational Transmission of Ethnic Identification among Mexican Americans

Brian Duncan
,
University of Colorado-Denver
Stephen J. Trejo
,
University of Texas-Austin

Abstract

Many U.S.-born descendants of Mexican immigrants do not identify as Mexican or Hispanic in response to the Hispanic origin question asked in the Census and other government surveys. Analyzing microdata from the 2000 U.S. Census and the 2001-2019 American Community Surveys, we show that the age at arrival of Mexican immigrants exerts an important influence on ethnic identification not only for these immigrants themselves but also for their U.S.-born children. Among Mexican immigrants who arrived as children, the rate of “ethnic attrition”—i.e., not self-identifying as Mexican or Hispanic—is higher for those who migrated at a younger age. Moreover, the children of these immigrants exhibit a similar pattern: greater ethnic attrition among children whose parents moved to the United States at a younger age. We unpack the relative importance of several key mechanisms—parental English proficiency, parental education, family structure, intermarriage, and geographic location—through which the age at arrival of immigrant parents influences the ethnic identification of their children. Intermarriage turns out to be the primary mechanism: Mexican immigrants who arrived at a very young age are more likely to marry non-Hispanics, and the rate of ethnic attrition is dramatically higher among children with mixed ethnic backgrounds. Prior research demonstrates that arriving at an early age hastens and furthers the integration of immigrants. We show here that this pattern also holds for ethnic identification and that the resulting differences in ethnic attrition among first-generation immigrants are transmitted to their second-generation children.

Unaccompanied Migrant Children and Violations of Federal Child Labor Legislation

Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes
,
University of California-Merced
José R. Bucheli
,
University of Texas-El Paso

Abstract

Child labor violations in the United States have quadrupled since 2015. Labor shortages caused by the pandemic, baby boomer retirements, and inflationary pressures have prompted state-level efforts to relax child labor laws, emphasizing teenage labor as cost-effective and respectful of parental rights. However, reports on unaccompanied migrant children (UMCs) being hired post-release from government custody challenge some of those arguments and raise concerns about the potential abuse of at-risk children. In this paper, we explore whether UMC placements, amid changes in state child labor laws, have contributed to county-level child labor violations between 2019 and 2022. We pay attention to the incidence, but also the frequency and seriousness of the infractions—as captured by the number of affected children and whether it involved hazardous occupations. Our findings highlight the need for regulatory controls to ensure the government’s ability to track vulnerable UMCs and ensure children’s well-being.

The Self-Employment Decisions of Immigrants in America

Alejandro Gutierrez-Li
,
North Carolina State University

Abstract

In this paper, I analyze the relationship between immigrants’ employment engagement in their home countries and their self-employment decisions in the United States. Using a unique dataset with pre and post-migration labor market data from permanent residents, I assess whether individuals who did not work before migrating were more likely to be self-employed in America controlling for demographic characteristics, human capital, and region of origin and destination in the United States, among other factors. This paper belongs to a burgeoning literature studying the relationship between pre and post-migration labor market outcomes of immigrants. Previous work on this area has looked at the persistence of self-employment across borders but has focused on the U.S. outcomes of the subset individuals with home country work experience. However, many immigrants come to America without work experience, whose trajectories I analyze in this paper in addition to studying the experiences of those who worked in their origin countries.

Differences in Exposure to Food Insecurity between Foreign-Born and U.S.-Born Households and the Role of SNAP

Alfonso Flores-Lagunes
,
W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research
Judith Liu
,
University of Oklahoma
Norbert L. Wilson
,
Duke University

Abstract

Over 40 million people in the U.S. are foreign-born, and one in four children have at least one immigrant parent, making immigrant households crucial for the future of the U.S. population. We document that there have been significant disparities in food insecurity exposure and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits received between immigrant and native households, which become more prominent when focusing on Hispanic households or those with children. While SNAP partially mitigates the food insecurity disparity and vulnerability, the unmet gap in food resources remains substantial. We also use a decomposition framework that breaks down differences in SNAP benefits across groups into three policy components: eligibility, participation, and generosity, and links them to differences in food insecurity outcomes. Through this decomposition, we study how the relative importance of these three policy components differs across immigrant and native households. Among other insights, we find that immigrant-led low-income Hispanic households receive significantly lower mean SNAP benefits compared to their native counterparts, which is primarily attributed to the generosity component. However, both the eligibility and participation components exacerbate the relative benefits gap. Among low-income households with children, SNAP slightly mitigates the relative food resource gap between immigrant-led and native-led households through both eligibility and generosity, but participation significantly intensifies their relative gap. Counterfactual policy experiments indicate that policies aimed at increasing participation among immigrants would be the most effective policy approach for alleviating the relative food resource gap between immigrant and native disadvantaged populations.

Discussant(s)
Christopher Campos
,
University of Chicago
Rene Crespin
,
Michigan State University
Chunbei Wang
,
Virginia Tech
Joaquin Rubalcaba
,
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
JEL Classifications
  • J1 - Demographic Economics
  • F2 - International Factor Movements and International Business