Has immigration affected Spanish presidential elections results?

Between 1998 and 2008, the immigrant share in Spain jumped from less than 3 % to more than 13 %. We provide bounds on the effect of immigration inflows on natives’ election outcomes by considering alternative assumptions about nationalized immigrants’ participation rates and voting behavior. We find that Latin-American immigration increased natives’ participation rate and their support for the major leftist party (Socialist Workers’ Party) over the major conservative party (People’s Party (PP)). Conversely, African immigration only increased natives’ support for anti-immigration formations relative to the PP while leaving unaffected their participation rate. The estimated effects are of modest size in all cases. We provide suggestive evidence that economic factors cannot account for such a heterogeneity in the effects of interest by immigrants’ ethnic groups. We argue that Spanish natives’ attitudes towards immigrants are mainly driven by noneconomic factors like dissimilarities between natives and immigrants in language, religion, and race.     

Do amnesty programs reduce undocumented immigration? Evidence from Irca

This article examines whether mass legalization programs reduce future undocumented immigration. We focus on the effects of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which granted amnesty to nearly 2.7 million undocumented immigrants. We report that apprehensions of persons attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally declined immediately following passage of the law but returned to normal levels during the period when undocumented immigrants could file for amnesty and the years thereafter. Our findings suggest that the amnesty program did not change long-term patterns of undocumented immigration from Mexico.     

Immigrants’ economic performance across Europe – does immigration policy matter?

Drawing on panel data from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), we compare the economic performance of immigrants to Great Britain, West Germany, Denmark, Luxembourg, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Austria to that of the respective indigenous population. The unit of analysis is the individual in the household context. This allows us to define immigrants state of integration into the host society at the family level taking into account issues such as immigrant/native intermarriage. Economic performance is measured in terms of the country-specific pre-government income position and change in the relative income position due to redistribution processes within the respective tax and social security systems. Our work is based on the premise that countries may be categorized – similarly to existing categorizations based on the type of welfare regime – according to the nature of their immigration policy. From an economic point of view, a successful and integrative immigration policy should result – at least when controlling for background characteristics such as education – in a non-significant differential between the economic performance of immigrants and that of the indigenous population. At first glance, our results indicate that this ideal is not attained in all of the countries analysed, particularly not in Germany and Denmark, where the economic performance of immigrants is much lower than that of the indigenous population. However, results from GLS random-effects models show that immigrants to these countries improve their economic situation rapidly with increasing duration of stay in the host country. This implies that these countries also do fairly well in fostering in the economic integration of immigrants. Our empirical results further reveal that the substantial cross-country differences in the immigrant/native-born performance differential persist even when controlling in detail for socioeconomic characteristics of the household and for indicators of the state of the immigrants integration, such as years since migration and immigrant/native intermarriage. This suggests that not only the conditions of entry to a country impact on immigrants economic performance, but also country-specific institutional aspects such as restrictions on access to the labour market and parts of the social security system that are related to citizenship or immigrant status. There still is a great deal of heterogeneity across EU member states in this respect. This should be taken into account when working towards the harmonization of national EU immigration policies.This paper benefited substantially from discussions at the EEA 2003 Conference in Stockholm, Sweden, and the EPUNet 2003 Conference in Colchester, UK. We also acknowledge very helpful comments resulting from the reviewing process     

The effect of immigration on the internal migration of the native-born population, 1981–1990

This study examines the impact of immigration on the labor market opportunities of the native-born population by looking through the window of migration. We use Current Population Survey data to analyze the one-year migration patterns of Anglos and Blacks and include the presence of recent immigrants in the origin and (potential) destination US states among the covariates. Our departure model employs a logit specification to predict outmigration (vs not) from the state during the year prior to the survey. Our arrival model uses a conditional logit discrete choice specification with sampling among the alternatives to predict destination state. The data are taken from the 1981, 1984, 1987, and 1990 Current Population Surveys. This work adds to other knowledge of the migratory response of workers and sheds light on theories of substitution and complementarity in labor markets. States with high levels of recent immigration are less likely to retain Anglo workers or receive new Anglo interstate migrants, but this apparent substitution effect is partially offset by the presence of long-term immigrant stock. Lower skilled Anglos are more susceptible to this substitution effect than those of higher skill level. In the black population, results are more complex. Lower skilled blacks are less attracted to high immigrant locations, but African-Americans of higher skill level in selected occupations and industries are predicted to be more likely to remain in or choose states with many recent immigrants.     

Undocumented youth in limbo: the impact of America’s immigration enforcement policy on juvenile deportations

The surge in unaccompanied minor crossings between 2011 and 2014 led to an overwhelming increase in the number of juvenile deportation proceedings, which coincided with a peak in intensified immigration enforcement at the state and local levels. Using data on juvenile deportation proceedings, we examine how tougher immigration enforcement might have influenced judicial rulings on these cases and, ultimately, these youths’ ability to stay in the country. We find that the average increase in immigration enforcement over that period is associated with a 15% reduction in the share of juvenile cases ending with permission to stay. The result underscores the importance of the immigration policy context in which courts operate on their rulings, even if immigration law is within the jurisdiction of the Federal government. Given the gravity of the circumstances these children are escaping, further attention to how the piecemeal approach to immigration enforcement might impact the protection of their humanitarian rights is warranted.     

Up and on or down and out? Gender, immigration and the consequences of temporary employment in Canada

What happens to temporary workers when their jobs end? Is temporary employment a fleeting way station to a better job, or does it herald an ongoing cycle of precariousness? What are the implications of temporary employment dynamics for broader patterns of inequality in labour markets? European researchers have focused increasing attention on these issues in the context of concern about the relationship between inequality and insecurity in labour markets with strong regulatory protections for insiders. However, research on the outcomes of temporary employment in the less regulated labour markets of North America remains limited. This paper draws on rich representative panel data from Statistics Canada's Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) and competing risks Cox regression to assess the outcomes and dynamics of temporary employment in this understudied context. Key contributions include more precise estimates of transitions, consideration of multiple theoretically relevant outcomes (permanent jobs; new temporary jobs; and periods of unemployment and labour force withdrawal), and situation of the effect of gender and immigration status on temporary employment transitions in the context of the dynamics of permanent jobs. Findings present a more pessimistic picture of overall temporary job outcomes than prior research but suggest that the dynamics of temporary work do not magnify inequalities of gender and immigration status.