ABSTRACT
Native and foreign-born workers with a high school degree or less education work in different types of occupations. This article exploits the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act to examine whether legal status causes immigrants to work in occupations that use skills similar to those of natives. Legal status decreases the manual skill intensity of immigrants’ occupations by about two percentiles. It increases communication skill intensity by a similar amount. This reduces the skill gap between Mexican-born and native-born American workers by 11–15%.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
5 We use foreign-born individuals aged 18–65 (inclusive) employed in nonmilitary occupations who work more than 30 hours a week for more than half of the year. We drop people who live in group quarters or are enrolled in school.
7 See their paper for details on data construction.
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Funding
The authors received funding from the New York Six Liberal Arts Consortium.
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