Linked Migration Systems: Immigration and Internal Labor Flows in the United States

Abstract

We investigate the relationships between immigration and internal labor movements in the United States. Wedding the literatures on immigration and internal migration, we develop a mobility model linking these various flows on the basis of occupational status of worker, production and institutional relations in the economy, and economic restructuring. We test this model in an inferential framework and find that native blue-collar workers have been spatially displaced by recent immigration and that the process of capital accumulation, as manifested in economic restructuring, is the driving force behind the mobility system, affecting both immigration patterns and the destination choices of white-collar workers. As a result, we suggest that previous estimates of immigrant impacts on local labor markets may be underestimated.

Key words:

• immigration
• immigrant impacts
• internal migration
• economic restructuring
• labor markets
• simultaneous equations model