Immigration Policy and the Rise of Self-Employment among Mexican Immigrants

The recent dramatic growth in self-employment among Mexican immigrants in the United States in the past two decades is a puzzling trend, in stark contrast to the stagnant growth or even decline among other demographic groups. The authors propose that the expansion of interior immigration enforcement...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Industrial & labor relations review 2022-10, Vol.75 (5), p.1189-1214
Main Authors: Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina, Lofstrom, Magnus, Wang, Chunbei
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Career change
Enforcement
Immigrants
Immigration policy
Livelihood
Mexican Americans
Self employment
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Summary:The recent dramatic growth in self-employment among Mexican immigrants in the United States in the past two decades is a puzzling trend, in stark contrast to the stagnant growth or even decline among other demographic groups. The authors propose that the expansion of interior immigration enforcement, a characteristic of the US immigration policy during that time span, contributed to this unique trend by pushing Mexican immigrants into self-employment as an alternative livelihood. Exploiting temporal and geographic variation in immigration enforcement measures from 2005 to 2017, the authors show that tougher enforcement has been responsible for approximately 15% of the rise in Mexican self-employment in the United States.
ISSN:0019-7939
2162-271X
DOI:10.1177/00197939211057765