Immigration Policy and Employment Conditions of US Immigrants from Mexico, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic1

Abstract

Prior studies suggest that the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in 1986 signalled a deterioration in the labour market conditions of Mexican migrants. In this paper, we examine whether and how labour market conditions worsened for Dominicans and Nicaraguans after 1986, and the extent to which these shifts were comparable to those experienced by Mexicans. Our analysis relies on a new source of data that offers comparable data across the three national origins. We estimate multivariate models that capture the effects of demographic attributes, human and social capital, migration-specific human and social capital, legal status, period of trip, national origin, and other controls on the hourly wages earned by household heads and whether they received cash wages on their last US trip. Models with interaction terms reveal significant pre- and post-1986 wage effects, but few differences in these effects between Mexicans and Dominicans or Nicaraguans. In contrast, group differences appear in the risk of cash receipt of wages. Dominicans and Nicaraguans experienced a greater increase in this risk relative to Mexicans pre- and post-1986. Together, these findings depict a broader, negative impact of IRCA on Latino migrant wages than has been documented elsewhere.