immigration amnesty

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu Jan 27 20:38:07 PST 2000


"IRCA's Impact on the Occupational Concentration and Mobility of

Newly-Legalized Mexican Men"

BY: SHERRIE A. KOSSOUDJI

University of Michigan

DEBORAH COBB-CLARK

Australian National University

Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection:

http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=166541

Date: January 1999

Contact: DEBORAH COBB-CLARK

Email: Mailto:dcclark at coombs.anu.edu.au

Postal: Australian National University

Economics Program, Research School of Social Sciences

Canberra, ACT 0200 AUSTRALIA

Phone: +61 2 6249 3267

Fax: +61 2 6249 0182

Co-Auth: SHERRIE A. KOSSOUDJI

Email: Mailto:kossoudj at umich.edu

Postal: University of Michigan

2788 School of Social Work Building

1080 S. University Ave.

701 Tappan Street

Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA

ABSTRACT:

We examine the occupational concentration and mobility of a

group of unauthorized Mexican men who received amnesty under

IRCA to shed light on the role of legal status in the

assimilation process. Initially these men are concentrated in a

small number of traditional migrant jobs. Although their

occupational mobility rate is high, it partly represents

churning through these same occupations. When we consider the

direction--either upward or downward--of occupational change, we

find that English language ability and the characteristics of

the occupation, itself, are strongly correlated with mobility

before legalization. After legalization, few characteristics

surpass in importance the common experience of having received

amnesty.

JEL Classification: J61, J62, J24



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