Spillover Effects of Immigration Policies on Children's Human Capital

Esther Arenas-Arroyo () and Bernhard Schmidpeter ()
Additional contact information
Esther Arenas-Arroyo: Vienna University of Economics and Business
Bernhard Schmidpeter: Vienna University of Economics and Business
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Esther Arenas-Arroyo

No 15624, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We study the spillover effects of immigration enforcement policies on children's human capital. Exploiting the temporal and geographic variation in the enactment of immigration enforcement policies, we find that the English language skills of US-born children with at least one undocumented parent are negatively affected by the introduction of these policies. Changes in parental investment behavior cause this reduction in children's English skills. Parents are less likely to enroll their children in formal non-mandatory preschool, substituting formal non-mandatory preschool education with parental time at home. Parents also reduce time spent on leisure and socializing, providing children with fewer opportunities to interact and learn from others. Ultimately, these developments reduce children's long-term educational success. Exposure to immigration enforcement during early childhood lowers the likelihood of high school completion. We also find negative, though imprecise, effects on college enrollment.

Keywords: parental investment; children's language skills; children's human capital; Immigration policies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J15 K37 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 58 pages
Date: 2022-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law, nep-mig and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp15624.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Spillover Effects of Immigration Policies on Children's Human Capital (2022)
Working Paper: Spillover effects of immigration policies on children's human capital (2022)
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:dp15624

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 ().