The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), the largest amnesty in U. S. history, took effect in 1986 and legalized all immigrants who arrived before 1982. The IRCA creates a discontinuity, according to the year of entry, in the probability of having legal status. Therefore, I use the regression discontinuity approach to study the impact of legality on immigrants' labor market outcomes and human capital. Using Californian Latino immigrants from Census 1990, I find that the 1975-81 arrivals, on average, outperform the 1982-86 arrivals in male wages, female employment probability, and male English-speaking ability. These findings are not due to a general trend in U. S. labor market conditions because the same analysis, using refugees, Puerto Rican migrants and U. S.-born Latinos-three comparison groups without legality issues-indicates no difference in outcomes between the 1975-81 and 1982-86 cohorts. However, the advantage of Latino immigrants of the earlier cohort over the later cohort diminishes in Census 2000. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.
CITATION STYLE
Pan, Y. (2012). The impact of legal status on immigrants’ earnings and human capital: Evidence from the IRCA 1986. Journal of Labor Research, 33(2), 119–142. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12122-012-9134-0
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