Gender Differences in the Labor Market: Impact of IRCA's Amnesty Provisions

Abstract

How to address the current record-high number of unauthorized workers within our borders has been a hotly debated topic. Although a number of studies have examined the effect of employer sanctions (Bansak and Raphael 2001; Deborah A. Cobb-Clark, Clinton R. Shields, and B. Lindsey Lowell 1995) and border enforcement (Pia Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny 2003), only a handful have examined the impact of amnesty on newly legalized immigrants (Sherrie A. Kossoudji and Deborah A. Cobb-Clark 2002; Neeraj Kaushal 2006). While amnesty is being considered a current solution to immigration concerns, the impact of past amnesty programs on the labor market outcomes and economic well-being of immigrants has not been documented widely, and the analysis has been limited largely to men. In this paper, we examine whether amnesty, a provision of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), affected the labor market outcomes and wages of the legalized population. The analysis is carried out by gender to address male and female differences in labor supply and earnings. Legalization was intended to bring undocumented workers “out of the shadows,” which may have affected their well-being by reducing workplace vulnerabilities, increasing job mobility, and improving working conditions (Sherrie A. Kossoudji and Cobb-Clark 2002). Using data from the Legalized Population Survey (LPS) and a comparison sample from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLYS79), we develop a quasi-experimental framework to assess the impact of IRCA’s amnesty provisions on the legalized population. Gender Differences in the Labor Market: Impact of IRCA’s Amnesty Provisions