The effect of legal status on immigrant wages and occupational skills

Native and foreign-born workers with a high school degree or less education work in different types of occupations. This article exploits the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act to examine whether legal status causes immigrants to work in occupations that use skills similar to those of natives. Legal status decreases the manual skill intensity of immigrants’ occupations by about two percentiles. It increases communication skill intensity by a similar amount. This reduces the skill gap between Mexican-born and native-born American workers by 11–15%.