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Title: Luxury, Necessity, and Anachronistic Workers: Does the United States Need Unskilled Immigrant Labor?

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2012

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Abstract: This article assesses the labor market implications of less-skilled migration to the United States. It emphasizes how recent social, demographic, and economic trends have reduced the availability of less-skilled native workers, while new low-education immigrant workers compete with other less-skilled immigrants for available lowskilledjobs. Declines in native fertility to substantially below replacement levels, together with native educational upgrading, have substantially reduced the size of theless-skilled native-born labor pool in the past 30 years, even below the level of need. This trend cannot be explained by declines in low-skilled manufacturing employment. Other factors also serve to exacerbate the size of the shortfall in the availability of less-skilled natives, including mismatches in the locations of low-education natives and less-skilled jobs. Nativity differences in health, physical disability, and substanceabuse also operate to widen the gap. The resulting void has largely been filled by increasing numbers of less-skilled immigrant workers. These patterns underscore the need for public policies that provide both less-skilled labor and reductions in social and economic inequalities in the United States.

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Authors: Bachmeier, James D.; Brown, Susan K.; Gubernskaya, Zoya; Bean, Frank D.; Smith, Christopher D.

Periodical (Full): American Behavioral Scientist

Issue: 8

Volume: 56

Pages: 1008-1028

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Migration and Immigration

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