Frank D. Bean

Undocumented Mexican Immigrants and the Earnings of Other Workers in the United States

This article examines the effects of undocumented Mexican immigrants on the earnings of other workers in geographical labor markets in the Southwest. The number of undocumented Mexicans included in the 1980 census in southwestern SMSAs is estimated. We then estimate the parameters of three specifications of a generalized Leontief production function with various demographic groups as substitutable factors. The statistically significant effects of undocumented Mexicans on the earnings of other groups are positive, but of slight magnitude. Legal immigrants’ effects on native white earnings, however, are small and negative. The results are consistent with the possibility that undocumented Mexican immigrants’ jobs complement those of other workers. The implications for public policy concerns about the effects of illegal Mexican immigration are discussed.

Assimilation disruption and the fertility of Mexican origin women in the United States.

This research uses 1970 and 1980 Census data to test hypotheses about the effects of adaptation, assimilation and disruption on the fertility of Mexican-origin women. In the absence of longitudinal or life history data, the kinds of forces affecting immigrant group fertility can be inferred by: 1) examining the degree to which Mexican-origin women disaggregated by nativity or generational groups differ in fertility behavior from non-Hispanic Whites; 2) analyzing both current and cumulative fertility; 3) comparing the fertility of nativity or generational groups disaggregated by age of women and period of immigration; and 4) conducting cohort analyses between more than one time period. The findings show evidence of both assimilation and disruption effects on reproductive behavior. Fertility is found to decline the greater the length of familial exposure to the United States and, in the case of younger groups of immigrant women, to fall below the level of U.S.-born Mexican-origin and non-Hispanic White women when other variables are held constant. These results illustrate why assimilation effects on immigrant group fertility have often not emerged in previous research. They also imply that the fertility behavior of the Mexican-origin population is likely to come to resemble that of the rest of the population the longer this group resides in the United States.

Undocumented Migration to the United States: IRCA and the Experience of the 1980s

The authors rely on several different data sources to tackle the problem of estimating whether IRCA has had an impact on illegal immigration to the United States, and employ a variety of approaches to tease out information on trends. Some present results based on data collected in Mexico, the single most important source country--important as a supplement to get a complete picture of changing patterns of illegal immigration.

The Educational Legacy of Unauthorized Migration: Comparisons Across U.S.-Immigrant Groups in How Parents’ Status Affects Their Offspring†

This research compares several national-origin groups in terms of how parents’ entry, legalization and naturalization (i.e., membership) statuses relate to their childrens educational attainment. In the case of Asian groups, the members of which predominantly come to the United States as permanent legal migrants, we hypothesize (1) that fathers and mothers statuses will be relatively homogenous and few in number and (2) that these will exert minimal net effects on second-generation attainment. For Mexicans, many of whom initially come as temporary unauthorized migrants, we hypothesize (1) that parental status combinations will be heterogeneous and greater in number and (2) that marginal membership statuses will exert negative net effects on education in the second generation. To assess these ideas, we analyze unique intergenerational data from Los Angeles on the young adult members of second-generation national-origin groups and their parents. The findings show that Asian immigrant groups almost universally exhibit similar father–mother migration statuses and high educational attainment among children. By contrast, Mexicans manifest more numerous discrepant father–mother combinations, with those in which the mother remains unauthorized carrying negative implications for childrens schooling. The paper discusses the theoretical and policy implications of the delays in incorporation that result from Mexican Americans needing extra time and resources compared to the members of other groups to overcome their handicap of marginal membership status {i.e., being more likely to enter and remain unauthorized).

Opening and Closing the Doors. Evaluating Immigration Reform and Control

This book provides a clear outline of the major historical features of immigration to the United States; examines in detail the provisions, implementations to date, and potential effects of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA); and reviews recent trends in legal and illegal immigration and refugee admissions, together with recent proposals to further alter legal immigration policy. The last chapter moves beyond IRCA and a strictly legislative focus to a discussion of integration in relation to the U.S. economy, labor markets, and foreign policy.

Circular, invisible, and ambiguous migrants: Components of difference in estimates of the number of unauthorized Mexican migrants in the United States

Based on an equation that can be used with available data and that provides a basis for facilitating decomposition analyses, this research estimates that about 2.54 million total (as opposed to enumerated) unauthorized Mexicans resided in the United States in 1996. Comparing this figure with an estimate of about 2.70 million released by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) during the 1990s, we find that the two estimates involve different assumptions about circular, invisible, and ambiguous migrants. Such differences not only can have important policy implications; they can also be sizable and can operate in opposite directions, as illustrated by findings from a components-of-difference analysis. The results are also extrapolated to 2000, and implications for 2000 census counts are discussed.

Familism and Marital Satisfaction among Mexican Americans: The Effects of Family Size, Wife's Labor Force Participation, and Conjugal Power

The concept of familism as an important aspect of Mexican-American family life is studied by examining the effects of 3 variables on marital satisfaction: 1) family size; 2) wifes participation in the labor force; and 3) conjugal power. A reanalysis was conducted on data gathered from 325 Mexican American couples in 1969 through the Austin family survey. Results revealed that: 1) husbands and wives are more satisfied with the affective side of their marriage when there are fewer children and when the conjugal power structure is more egalitarian; 2) husbands are less satisfied when the wife works; and 3) wives are less satisifed when they work voluntarily. When the sample is split according to occupation the pattern of labor force participation effects is found to hold only among lower class couples suggesting that class rather than ethnicity is the more important factor conditioning the relationship. Findings indicate the levels of marital satisfaction are a product of marital conditions per se more than of culturally based values about familism.

Intelligence and fertility in the United States: 1912-1982.

Results are presented for the 1st analysis of the relationship between IQ and completed fertility using a large, representative sample of the US population. Correlations are predominantly negative for cohorts born between 1894 and 1964 but are significantly more positive for cohorts whose fertility was concentrated in the baby boom years. Previous studies reporting slightly positive correlations appear to have been biased in their restriction of samples to atypical cohorts. The National Opinion Research Center (NORC), a nonprofit research organization affiliated with the University of Chicago, conducted the General Social Survey (GSS) in the US each year from 1972 to 1982, except for 1979. A combination of block quota and full probability sampling was employed. Hour-long interviews were completed with 12,120 respondents who were English-speaking, noninstitutionalized adults (18 years or older) living within the continental US. Such questions as age, place of birth, income and occupation, were asked in each interview. Other questions about attitudes on various social, political, and moral issues were rotated in different years. The unique opportunity this data set affords is an overview of the relationship between intelligence and fertility for a nationally representative sample of Americans whose major reproductive years fell between 1912 and 1982. Data were consolidated from the 4 surveys in which the vocabulary test was given (1974, 1976, 1978, and 1982). Respondents were divided into 15 birth cohorts of 5-year intervals ranging from before 1894 to 1964. Correlations between vocabulary scores and number of siblings are markedly negative across all 15 cohorts. Vocabulary sibling correlations are more negative in every cohort than vocabulary offspring correlations. Previous reports of a neutral or slightly eugenic relationship appear to be due to the nature of the samples used, in part because the cohorts chosen were atypical, and in part because they did not include nonwhites. Childless respondents averaged slightly higher scores than did those with 1 or more children, indicating that the automatic exclusion of the childless from sibling-IQ studies has not spuriously inflated negative correlations.

Undocumented migration to the United States: perceptions and evidence.

As the number of immigrants to the United States has risen over the past 20 years and as their national origins have shifted to Third World countries the attention of the public and of policymakers has increasingly focused on the costs rather than the benefits associated with the arrival of newcomers. After a brief examination of the size of the undocumented population in the United States--most of whom are Mexican in origin--the article examines a variety of recent studies of the labor market impact of undocumented immigrants. The wages of such workers do not appear to be affected by their immigrant status per se and the effects of immigrants (both legal and undocumented) on the wages and earnings of other labor force groups are either nonexistent or small (and sometimes positive). Such conclusions have important policy implications. They might incline one for example to be more favorably disposed toward legal employment programs. This is a revised version of a paper presented at the 1987 Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America (see Population Index Vol. 53 No. 3 Fall 1987 p. 417). (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA) (EXCERPT)

Immigrant Job Quality and Mobility in the United States

The U.S. workforce heavily depends on immigrants. To address the role and position of non-White immigrant groups in the United States, the authors examine employment and industry patterns in the labor force, disaggregated by nativity and gender, in 1990 and 2000. The authors then look at job quality and mobility, with job quality defined by occupation, industry, and relative earnings, using 1990 and 2000 census data. Disaggregating results by race and ethnicity, nativity, and gender reveals that immigrants do not appear entirely to be stuck in low-end jobs, and arrival cohort data suggest substantial immigrant upward mobility, mainly from lower to middle but also to higher range jobs. Immigrants may experience more upward mobility than analysts sometimes conclude based on consideration of immigrants’ race and ethnicity alone and on assumptions that the experiences of new immigrants are likely to mirror those of the African American population.