Hispanic Immigration and Labor Market Segmentation

This paper investigates the wage and employment effects of Hispanic immigration on native-born, low-skilled urban workers. The study develops a multiquation model to counter simultaneity bias, isolates the impact of recent illegal aliens from that of settled immigrants and of native interstate movers, calculates separate estimates for female and male employees, subdivided by race and Spanish origin, and tests both conventional and dual labor market theories. The results indicate that recent immigration has not had substantial adverse wage or employment effects.