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Immigrant Wage Growth In The United States: The Role Of Occupational Upgrading

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  • Rebecca Lessem
  • Carl Sanders

Abstract

Immigrants to the United States routinely take jobs below their skill qualifications because of barriers to entering occupations. We use a structural model of immigrant job choice to quantify the benefits of potential policies to promote entry into suitable occupations. We estimate the model using longitudinal labor market data on immigrants to the United States. Our counterfactual results show that eliminating barriers to occupational entry would lead to only a small earnings increase for the average immigrant in our sample, but a substantial earnings increase for the most highly skilled immigrants.

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  • Rebecca Lessem & Carl Sanders, 2020. "Immigrant Wage Growth In The United States: The Role Of Occupational Upgrading," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(2), pages 941-972, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:iecrev:v:61:y:2020:i:2:p:941-972
    DOI: 10.1111/iere.12445
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    Cited by:

    1. Massimiliano Tani, 2021. "Occupational Licensing and the Skills Mismatch of Highly Educated Migrants," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 59(3), pages 730-756, September.
    2. Jérôme Adda & Christian Dustmann & Joseph-Simon Görlach, 2022. "The Dynamics of Return Migration, Human Capital Accumulation, and Wage Assimilation [Immigration and Spatial Equilibrium: The Role of Expenditures in the Country of Origin]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(6), pages 2841-2871.
    3. Ales, Laurence, 2020. "Comments on “What is the Optimal Immigration Policy? Migration, Jobs and Welfare” by Guerreiro, Rebelo, and Teles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 88-91.

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