Filling the niche: The role of the parents of immigrants in the United States

Abstract

Care-providing parents of immigrants fill a labor market niche in the receiving economy. My research examines the intergenerational support for working women in immigrant families in the United States. Using panel data derived from the Current Population Survey (CPS), I find that having a coresiding parent increases the labor force participation probability of foreign-born women with children by about 7.4 percent, and that the effects differ by birth region and educational level. I use a difference-in-differences approach to reinforce the finding that coresiding parents significantly alleviate the short-term labor force participation decline of foreign-born females after their transition to motherhood.