Gendered Consequences: Multigenerational Schooling Effects of IRCA

Abstract

Prior research has examined the incorporation outcomes among unauthorized migrants after implementation of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). However, few studies have evaluated how legalization opportunities produce gendered outcomes among the second-generation children of unauthorized immigrants. We examine the association of legalization opportunities provided through IRCA with the years of schooling attained by the sons and daughters of Mexican American immigrants. By distinguishing likely eligibility for one of two programs implemented under IRCA—the Legally Authorized Workers and Special Agricultural Workers programs—we consider whether type of legalization program matters by assessing gender differences in schooling among children of Mexican immigrants. Although legalization provides a substantial educational premium for the children of Mexican immigrants regardless of gender, the size of the legalization premium is smaller, on average, for sons than daughters. The advantage to daughters is especially notable among those with parents eligible for the Special Agricultural Workers program. We consider these findings in the context of theories of immigrant incorporation and intergenerational mobility.

Immigrants and wealth attainment: migration, inequality, and integration

“…Research should investigate how wealth changes over time and across generations for the same households and how these trajectories vary by race/ethnicity, class, and national origin. It is clear from the immigration literature that there are gendered patterns of socioeconomic attainment among the U.S. second-generation (Feliciano and Rumbaut 2005;Park, Nawyn, and Benetsky 2015;Pullés and Brown 2017;Valdez and Tran 2019) and from the wealth accumulation literature that gender structures wealth more broadly (Ruel and Hauser 2013;Yavorsky et al 2019). Scholars should bridge these literatures to investigate how wealth attainment among immigrants and their descendants varies by gender and national origin.…”

“…Relatedly, the paper by Emeka in this volume demonstrates that wealth attainment has been substantial for the cohort of immigrants born in the 1950s who migrated to the U.S. in the 1970s. Given increasing economic inequality in the U.S., the changing selectivity of migrant flows (Feliciano 2007;Lee and Zhou 2015;Feliciano and Lanuza 2017), and the exclusionary effects of long-term undocumented status, racialisation, and crimmigration on interand-intra-generational mobility (Waters and Kasinitz 2015;Bean, Brown, and Bachmeier 2015;Dreby 2015;Gonzales 2015;Pullés and Brown 2017), the same pattern of (such) positive wealth accumulation might no longer apply to the subsequent cohorts. These studies draw from existing theories of integration and highlight the role of class, race, educational selectivity and period-specific contexts of reception, and they also demonstrate that wealth is dependent on macro-level factors, independent of immigrants' personal drive and determination.…”