The Employment and Wages of Legalized Immigrants

Abstract

This article analyzes the employment and wages of recently legalized immigrants using the Legalization Application Processing System (LAPS) file, an administrative file based on the individual records of amnesty applicants, and draws comparisons with a sample of the foreign-born population from the Current Population Surveys of 1983, 1986 and 1988. Compared to the total foreign-born population, the legalized immigrant population differs in four important respects that bear on labor market position: 1) a younger age structure; 2) a less balanced gender composition; 3) a greater representation of Latin Americans; and 4) few years of U.S. residence. LAPS data reveal high rates of labor force participation among legalized immigrants, which exceeded the rates of the foreign-born population by approximately 5 and 17 percent for men and women, respectively. Legal immigrants earn approximately 30 percent more than their undocumented counterparts from the same regional origins. National origin alone accounts for about half of the wage gap between legal and undocumented migrants. In addition, the wage disadvantage of undocumented immigrants actually increases with age. Cross-sectional data preclude an unambiguous interpretation of this result, which requires longitudinal data.