Is Immigration Enforcement Shaping Immigrant Marriage Patterns?

Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes, Esther Arenas-Arroyo () and Chunbei Wang
Additional contact information
Esther Arenas-Arroyo: Vienna University of Economics and Business
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Esther Arenas-Arroyo

No 12876, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper identifies intermarriage (between non-citizens and citizens) as an important response mechanism to intensified immigration enforcement, particularly among Mexican non-citizens. Exploiting the temporal and geographic variation in the implementation of interior immigration enforcement from 2005 to 2017, we find that a one standard deviation increase in enforcement raises Mexican non-citizens' likelihood of marrying a U.S. citizen by 3 to 6 percent. Our results show that this effect is driven by a change in spousal preference. Both police-based and employment-based enforcement contribute to this impact. The analysis adds to a growing literature examining how immigrants respond to tightened enforcement and, importantly, sheds light on the recent growth of intermarriage among Mexican immigrants.

Keywords: family structure; undocumented immigrants; immigration enforcement; intermarriage; United States (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 J15 K37 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 63 pages
Date: 2019-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-mig and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: Journal of Public Economics, 2020, 190, 104242

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp12876.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Is immigration enforcement shaping immigrant marriage patterns? (2020)
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:iza:izadps:dp12876

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().