Exploring the role of legal status and neighborhood social capital on immigrant economic integration in Los Angeles

Ashley Muchow and Robert Bozick
Additional contact information
Ashley Muchow: University of Illinois at Chicago
Robert Bozick: Rice University

Demographic Research, 2022, vol. 46, issue 1, 1-36

Abstract: Background: Existing research has emphasized immigration policy and social capital as two crucial elements of reception that influence immigrant labor market outcomes. While much attention has been paid to these two factors in isolation, a limited body of empirical work has examined how they intersect, specifically how social capital influences the economic integration of immigrants legally precluded from the formal labor market. Objective: Our goal is to examine the extent to which immigrant legal status conditions economic integration in the United States and whether neighborhood social capital moderates this relationship. Methods: This study relies on a large probability sample of individuals residing in Los Angeles County that directly ascertains the legal status of immigrants. We employ inverse probability of treatment-weighted linear regressions to compare the labor market outcomes of undocumented immigrants to those of immigrants with varying forms of legal status and to examine how neighborhood social capital moderates the link between legal status and economic attainment. Conclusions: We find two distinct modes of economic incorporation: one of steady work and higher wages among immigrants with citizenship status, and one of lower earnings and greater reliance on self-employment among immigrants in the country without documentation. Our results suggest that neighborhood social capital does not improve the labor market prospects of undocumented immigrants and in some cases may penalize them. Contribution: By extending research on immigrant economic integration, this study highlights the labor market penalties experienced by undocumented immigrants, the limitations of neighborhood social capital in facilitating their integration into the American economy, and the potential value of self-employment.

Keywords: legal status; immigrants; neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics; neighborhood; social capital; labor market outcome; United States of America; undocumented immigration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol46/1/46-1.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dem:demres:v:46:y:2022:i:1

DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2022.46.1

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Demographic Research from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Editorial Office ().