Undocumented workers in the labor market: an analysis of the earnings of legal and illegal Mexican immigrants in the United States.

"This paper studies the differences in earnings between Mexican legal and illegal immigrants in the United States. The analysis includes a cross-sectional examination of the wage differences between legal and undocumented workers as well as a longitudinal analysis examining the impact of legalization on the earnings of previously-undocumented workers. It is shown that the average hourly wage rate of male Mexican legal immigrants in the United States was 41.8% higher than that of undocumented workers while female legal immigrants earned 40.8% more."

Earnings mobility of first and "1.5" generation Mexican-origin women and men: a comparison with U.S.-born Mexican-Americans and non-Hispanic whites.

"This study addresses the following questions: Are Mexican immigrants closing the earnings gap with greater time in the United States, compared to U.S.-born Mexican Americans and non-Hispanic whites? What factors are most important in determining their earnings? How are earnings determinants different for women versus men, and those who came to the United States as children, versus those who came as adults and those born in the United States?... With greater time in the United States, male immigrants achieve average earnings comparable to U.S.-born Mexican Americans, but not to non-Hispanic whites, controlling for human capital variables. With greater time in the United States, female immigrants approach the number of hours of paid work of U.S.-born women, but not the earnings received per hour. Gains in earnings associated with age, time in the United States, and English proficiency differ by gender, reflecting structural differences in the labor market."

Education, work and earnings of Peruvian women.

PIP: This study describes trends in educational attainment among women in Peru, and examines the determinants of educational attainment, labor force participation and employment, and earnings. Data were obtained from the Peruvian Living Standards Survey among a sample of 5644 women aged 20-59 years. Findings indicate that parents' educational variables had a positive and statistically significant relationship with the educational attainment of their daughters. The impact declined over time from older to younger cohorts. School reforms improved women's access to education. Education became more universal and compulsory over time. Daughters of mothers with white collar occupations had higher levels of schooling than farmers' daughters. The effects of fathers' education was larger. There was a wider gap between farmers and nonfarmers. Textbooks, teachers, and number of grades offered were the only primary school inputs that showed any clear cohort trend in their effect on years of schooling. As primary schools became more available, textbooks had a greater impact on school attainment. The impact of textbooks was larger for women than for men. The number of grades offered had a large positive effect which increased across cohorts from older to younger. Findings suggest weak effects of school reforms on women's likelihood of participating in the paid or unpaid labor force. Years of schooling had a very small and negative effect on total labor force participation. Woman's paid employment was influenced by age, education and training, household characteristics, and family's unearned income. Educational attainment had a small positive effect on participation in paid employment for younger women and no effect for older women. The average rate of return in paid employment to primary education was about 12%. Primary education had the highest rate of return. The return to job tenure was higher for younger women.^ieng

[Changes in employment, retirement age and fertility: their effects on economic dependency and per capita income]. / Cambios en el empleo, la edad de jubilacion y la fecundidad: sus repercusiones sobre la dependencia economica y el ingreso per capita.

PIP: This article provides a very simplified analysis of the impact of changes in unemployment, retirement age, and fertility on economic dependency and per capita income in Latin America. The macroeconomic consequences of variations in age structure have received a little recent attention among Latin American researchers and policymakers, partly because of the lack of simple but rigorous analytical models to orient research. This analysis is simplified in that it focuses on changes in age distribution but does not explicitly consider effects of changes in population size, even though in reality the 2 types of changes are interrelated. The analysis has also been simplified by not taking into account any type of causal interaction between the demographic and economic variables analyzed; only the most elementary accounting relations between them are utilized. The 1st section defines the concept of economic dependency, specifies the effects of changes in its demographic and economic components, and establishes a simple link between the dependency ratio and per capita income. These and other derivations in the following sections permit evaluation of the impact of changes in employment, retirement age, and fertility on the dependency ratio and per capita income. The work concludes with a synthesis and general discussion, including a theoretical consideration of the effects of interactions among components. Only the most important equations are presented in the main text, but all variables, equations, and relations are defined and derived in the appendix. 6 countries were studied to illustrate the relationships in the context of the demographic diversity of Latin America. Argentina and Cuba represented countries in an advanced stage of the demographic transition, Chile and Mexico represented an intermediate phase, and Bolivia and Peru represented countries at the beginning of the transition. Results of decomposition of changes in dependency and income due to each of the factors showed substantial variation between countries in regard to changes in unemployment and fertility, but much less variation in regard to changes in retirement age. A 50% decline in unemployment would have comparatively moderate effects and would increase per capita income by 1-6.5%. Shortterm impacts of fertility decline would be greater, and would vary between 1-8.5%, while an increase of 2 years in the retirement age would produce more uniform increments fluctuating between 6-8%. The analysis indicates that few Latin American countries have reached the stage where small fertility reductions would be detrimental to their dependency burden or per capita income. Some countries with slow growth like Argentina are gradually approaching the stage when efforts of demographic aging will be more important.^ieng