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Do Immigrants Work in Worse Jobs than U.S. Natives? Evidence from California
Author(s) -
Zavodny Madeline
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
industrial relations: a journal of economy and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.61
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1468-232X
pISSN - 0019-8676
DOI - 10.1111/irel.12087
Subject(s) - immigration , census , assertion , demographic economics , work (physics) , survey data collection , sociology , political science , economics , demography , population , computer science , law , engineering , mechanical engineering , statistics , mathematics , programming language
In the debate over immigration reform, a common assertion is that immigrants take jobs that U.S. natives do not want. Using data from the 2000 Census merged with O*NET data on occupation characteristics, I show that the jobs held by immigrants are more physically arduous than the jobs held by U.S. natives. However, data from the California Work and Health Survey on self‐reported physical job demands indicate that immigrants do not perceive their jobs as requiring more physical effort than U.S. natives. Immigrants thus have worse jobs than natives but do not view them as such.