Why are the wages of the Mexican immigrants and their descendants so low in the United States?
Abstract
This paper studies the role of occupational segregation in explaining the low wages among first, second and third generation Mexican immigrants in the United States. Mexican-Americans earn lower wages than African-Americans mainly because they possess less human capital. With respect to Americans of European descent, their lower wages are also a product of their smaller rewards for skills and underrepresentation at the top of the occupational structure. Occupational segregation constitutes an important part of the wage gap between natives and Mexican-born immigrants. For subsequent generations, the contribution of occupational segregation to the wage gap varies significantly between groups and according to the decomposition used
References
Allensworth, E. 1997. Earnings mobility of first and “1.5” generation Mexican- origin women and men: A comparison with U.S.-born Mexican Americans and Non-Hispanic whites, International Migration Review, 31: 386-410.
Blinder, A. 1973. Wage discrimination: Reduced form and structural estimates, Journal of Human Resources, 8: 436-455.
Borjas, G. and L. Katz. 2007. The evolution of the Mexican-born workforce in the United States, in G. Borjas (ed.), Mexican Immigration to the United States, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Brown, R., M. Moon and B. Zoloth. 1980. Incorporating occupational attainment in studies of male-female earnings differentials, Journal of Human Resources, 15: 3-28.
Chiswick, B. and P. Miller. 2009. Earnings and occupational attainment among immigrants, Industrial Relations, 48: 454-465.
Demoussis, M., N. Giannakopoulos and S. Zografakis. 2010. Native-immigrant wage differentials and occupational segregation in the Greek labour market, Applied Economics, 42: 1015-1027.
Démurger, S., M. Gurgand, L. Shi and Y. Ximing. 2009. Migrants as second-class workers in urban China? A decomposition analysis, Journal of Comparative Economics, 37: 610-628.
Duncan, O. and B. Duncan. 1955. A methodological analysis of segregation indexes, American Sociological Review, 20: 210-217.
Duncan, B. and S. Trejo. 2011. Who remains Mexican? Selective ethnic attrition and the intergenerational progress of Mexican Americans, in D. Leal, and S. Trejo (eds.), Latinos and the Economy: Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy, New York, Springer.
Elliot, R. and J. Lindley. 2008. Immigrant wage differentials, ethnicity and occupational segregation, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A, 171: 645-671.
Gyourko, J. and J. Tracy. 1988. An analysis of public- and private-sector wages allowing for endogenous choices of both government and union status, Journal of Labor Economics, 6: 229-253.
King, M., S. Ruggles, T. Alexander, S. Flood, K. Genadek, M. Schroeder, B. Trampe and R. Vick. 2010. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, Current Population Survey: Version 3.0, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota.
Lee, L. F. 1983. Generalized econometric models with selectivity, Econometrica, 51: 507-512.
Liu, P. W., J. Zhang and S.-C. Chong. 2004. Occupational segregation and wage differentials between natives and immigrants: Evidence from Hong Kong, Journal of Development Economics, 73: 395-413.
Livingston, G. and J. Kahn. 2002. An American dream unfulfilled: The limited mobility of Mexican Americans, Social Science Quarterly, 83: 1003-1012.
Oaxaca, R. 1973. Male-female wage differentials in urban labor markets, International Economic Review, 14: 693-709.
Trejo, S. 1997. Why do Mexican Americans earn low wages? Journal of Political Economy, 105: 1235-1268.
Trejo, S. 2003. Intergenerational progress of Mexican-origin workers in the U.S. labor market, Journal of Human Resources, 38: 467-489.
-
Abstract viewed - 873 times
-
PDF downloaded: 286 times
-
XML downloaded: 0 times