The Effects of the Crisis on Occupational Segregation of Skilled Migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean in the United States, 2006–2012

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of the 2007-2008 economic and financial crisis on the levels of employment and unemployment of skilled migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), as well as their conditions of labour insertion and levels of income, in order to identify patterns of occupational segregation and wage inequality according to their participation in the US labour market. This analysis was developed using a comparative perspective in two ways: on the one hand, comparing skilled migrants from LAC to the skilled migrant population from other regions of the world and to the native skilled population and, on the other hand, by analysing these indicators pre-crisis and post-crisis. The information source employed in this study was the March supplements of the Current Population Survey 2006-2012. Our findings indicate that the crisis affected the entire skilled population in the USA and particularly the migrant population. This impact is stronger among LAC women because they are the ones at greatest disadvantage, a situation that worsened following the crisis. Skilled migrants from LAC are substantially more segregated on the occupational structure than other migrants, and they increased its concentration in mediumskilled occupations. The study also found that skilled migrants from LAC are underrepresented in professional occupations.

Highly-Skilled Migrants, Gender, and Well-Being in the Eindhoven Region. An Intersectional Analysis

“…The result is a longer working gap in women's curriculum and limits knowledge of the destination country's language, which decreases the chances of women entering the occupation of their training. A small proportion of skilled migrant females entered highly-paid jobs that matched their qualifications (Gandini and Lozano-Ascencio 2016;Kler 2006).…”

“…Moreover, women migrants' under-representation in high-demand occupations such as business administration, engineering, and IT and their presence in education, health, and culture-related professions partially accounted for their disadvantaged position in the labor market (Gandini and Lozano-Ascencio 2016).…”

Interjecting the geographies of skills into international skilled migration research: Political economy and ethics for a renewed research agenda

“…Moreover, the units of time also vary—from periodic assessments, usually related to data gathering, to more endogenous categories such as life stages (Collins, 2014; Zontini, 2015), life events (Kõu et al, 2015) and career stages (Czaika & Toma, 2017; Weller, 2017). Finally, these temporalities of people's own lives also intersect with political and economic events that are traced across nations such as regionalisation and institutions shifts (Baláž et al, 2018), and economic crises (Gandini & Lozano‐Ascencio, 2016; Triandafyllidou & Isaakyan, 2016), when economic changes at the level of the nation, or even factors such as the global recession, affect economic opportunities and hence, the migration of people.…”

Highly Skilled Migrants: Risks and Hedging Mechanisms

“…As a variable, ‘country of origin’ usually serves as a proxy for something else – such as educational system, language, or level of development. Three articles in this special issue focus on the influence this factor (country of origin) has on the economic integration of the highly skilled migrants in a host country: US (Gandini & Lozano‐Ascencio, ), UK (Vargas‐Silva, ), and Israel (Bodankin & Semyonov, ).…”

“…At present, the largest group of immigrants to the US is formed by those coming from Latin American and Caribbean countries. Gandini and Lozano‐Ascencio () analyse the effects the 2007–2008 economic and financial crises had on the labour outcomes of US skilled migrants coming from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Generally, LAC skilled migrants are under‐represented in professional occupations and significantly more segregated on the occupational structure.…”