The role of foreign-born workers in the U. S. economy

Monthly Labor Review

Volumn 125, Issue 5, 2002, Pages 3-14

  Mosisa, Abraham T ^a  

^a BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS   (United States)

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EID: 7644228610     PISSN: 00981818     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (14)

1. The foreign-born population, although primarily comprised of legally admitted immigrants, includes refugees, temporary residents such as students and temporary workers, and undocumented immigrants. "Natives" are persons born in the United States, Puerto Rico, or an outlying area of the United States such as Guam or the U.S. Virgin Islands, and persons who were born in a foreign country but who had at least one parent who was a U.S. citizen. All others are "foreign born."
2. In response to the increased demand for statistical information about the foreign born, questions on nativity, citizenship, year of entry, and parental nativity were added to the Current Population Survey (CPS) beginning in January 1994. Prior to 1994, the decennial census, two CPS Supplements (in April 1983 and November 1989) and, to some extent, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) that collects information about legally admitted immigrants and nonimmigrants, were the primary data sources on the foreign born. See A. Dianne Schmidley and J. Gregory Robinson, "How well does the Current Population Survey measure the foreign-born population in the United States?" Technical working paper No. 22, (U.S. Bureau of the Census, April 1998), p. 1.
3. Because data for 1994 and 1995 are not strictly comparable with data for 1996 and subsequent years, for this study, only data collected since 1996 are used. See Schmidley and Robinson, "How well does ...?".
4. People of Hispanic origin may be of any race including white, black, Asian and some other race. For most BLS programs, the practice is not to exclude persons of Hispanic origin from the white and black population groups.
5. See Ryan T. Helwig, Randy E. Ilg, and Sandra L. Mason, "Expansion of the Current Population Survey Sample Effective July 2001," Employment and Earnings (Bureau of Labor Statistics, August 2001). Data prior to 1996 are from Public-Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) of the Census Bureau.
6. For a more detailed discussion on the brief history of immigration and migration, see Howard Hayghe, Abraham Mosisa, and Terence McMenamin, "Counting Minorities: A Brief History and a Look at the Future," Report on the American Workforce (U.S. Department of Labor, 2001), chapter 1.
7. See Timothy J. Hatton, and Jeffrey G Williamson, "The Age of Mass Migration," (Oxford University Press, New York, 1998), pp. 7-17.
8. In 1879, the first immigration restriction law aimed at a particular nationality was passed by the U.S. Congress. The Fifteen Passenger Bill limited the number of Chinese passengers on any ship entering the United States to fifteen. But, because it would have violated the 1868 Burlingame-Seward treaty between the United States and China, which recognized the rights of their respective citizens to emigrate, it was vetoed. In 1880, however, a new agreement was signed between America and China called the Angell Treaty that allowed the United States to limit Chinese immigration. Two years later, the Chinese Exclusion Act was signed, barring Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States for ten years. It was renewed in 1892, again in 1902, and, in 1904, was renewed for an indefinite length of time. The passage of this act paved the way for further restrictive legislation affecting not only Asians, but Europeans as well.
9. Anti-Catholic sentiments began to emerge, followed by major movements endorsing the limitation of immigration among certain groups. A fact-finding commission was established and it published a report in 1911, lamenting the gradual shift in the sources of immigration away from northwestern and toward southern and eastern Europe, perceiving it as a decline in immigrant - quality, for example, lack of financial resources, good health, or sponsorship by relatives already in the country.
10. Usual weekly earnings data represent earnings before taxes and other deductions, and include any overtime pay, commissions, or tips usually received (at the main job in the case of multiple jobholders). Earnings reported on a basis other than weekly (for example, annual, monthly, hourly) are converted to weekly. Data refer to wage and salary workers (excluding self-employed persons who respond that their businesses were incorporated) who usually work full time on their sole or primary job. The comparison of earnings of the foreign born and native born is difficult, given that median weekly earnings data here exclude self-employed workers. Several researchers of immigration observe that a larger proportion of the foreign born are self-employed compared with the native born. Thus, caution should be exercised in interpreting the outcomes due to excluding self-employed workers from median weekly earnings.
11. This section compares median weekly earnings for persons with different levels of education. No attempts were made to correct other differences between different educational records such as quality of education, type of degrees earned, and other unobservable differences. Thus, caution should be exercised in interpreting outcomes as being entirely due to differences in education.
12. The share of the foreign born in the labor force change may be even higher. For example, estimates for the CPS show 28.8 million foreign born in 2000, while data from the Census 2000 supplementary survey universe show 30.5 million. Moreover, based on Demographic Analysis (DA) by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the Census Level Undercoverage rate for the foreign-born population ranges from 3.3 percent to 6.7 percent in 2000. The undercoverage rate differed by migrant status: 35 percent for temporary migrants, 12.5 percent for unauthorized migrants, and 2 percent for legal migrants. See Gregory J. Robinson, ESCAP II: Demographic Analysis Results, P.A.-12, Report No. 1 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, October 13, 2001).
13. The following is a listing of states for each region: New England (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont); Middle Atlantic (New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania); South Atlantic (Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia); East South Central (Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee); West South Central (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas); East North Central (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin); West North Central (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota); Mountain (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming); Pacific (Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington).
14. A long literature exists in the disciplines of economics, sociology, and urban planning that speaks to the issue of "ethnic enclaves." Some scholars believe such groupings to be detrimental to the newcomers, whom it can effectively prevent from assimilating into the larger society; while others believe the enclave can provide opportunities to newcomers that might not otherwise accrue to them in their new home.