IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/glodps/1.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Immigrant Fertility in the Midst of Intensified Enforcement

Author

Listed:
  • Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina
  • Arenas-Arroy, Esther

Abstract

This paper exploits the temporal and geographic variation in the implementation of local and state immigration enforcement measures to identify their impact on undocumented immigrants’ fertility. Using data from the 2005 through 2014 American Community Survey, we find that a one standard deviation increase in the intensity of immigration enforcement lowers the childbearing likelihood of likely undocumented women by 6.3 percent. This effect appears driven by police-based measures and, the fact that is present among intact families, families headed by a likely undocumented couple, as well as among the poorest families, suggests the importance of limited income resources, along with increased uncertainty emanating from an intensified fear of deportation, on likely unauthorized women’s fertility. Given immigrants’ critical contribution to the sustainability of the welfare state and the spread-out embracement of a piece-meal approach to immigration enforcement, further exploration of this impact is warranted and recommended.

Suggested Citation

  • Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina & Arenas-Arroy, Esther, 2017. "Immigrant Fertility in the Midst of Intensified Enforcement," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/150052/1/GLO_DP_0001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Patricia Cortés & José Tessada, 2011. "Low-Skilled Immigration and the Labor Supply of Highly Skilled Women," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 88-123, July.
    2. Emilio Parrado & S. Morgan, 2008. "Intergenerational fertility among hispanic women: New evidence of immigrant assimilation," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(3), pages 651-671, August.
    3. Tara Watson, 2014. "Inside the Refrigerator: Immigration Enforcement and Chilling Effects in Medicaid Participation," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 313-338, August.
    4. Cynthia Bansak, 2005. "The Differential Wage Impact of the Immigration Reform and Control Act on Latino Ethnic Subgroups," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 86(s1), pages 1279-1298.
    5. Card, David, 2001. "Immigrant Inflows, Native Outflows, and the Local Labor Market Impacts of Higher Immigration," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(1), pages 22-64, January.
    6. Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes & Susan L. Averett & Cynthia A. Bansak, 2016. "Welfare reform and immigrant fertility," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 29(3), pages 757-779, July.
    7. Pia M. Orrenius & Madeline Zavodny, 2009. "The effects of tougher enforcement on the job prospects of recent Latin American immigrants," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(2), pages 239-257.
    8. Bartel, Ann P, 1989. "Where Do the New U.S. Immigrants Live?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(4), pages 371-391, October.
    9. Daniel T. Griswold, 2012. "Immigration and the Welfare State," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 32(1), pages 159-174, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fertility; Immigration Enforcement; Undocumented Immigration; United States;

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • K37 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Immigration Law

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/glaboea.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.