title: Legal Status and Wage Disparities for Mexican Immigrants.
abstract: This paper employs a unique method of imputing the legal status of Mexican immigrants in the 1996-1999 and 2001-2003 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation to provide new evidence of the role of legal authorization in the U.S. on workers' wages. Using growth curve techniques, we estimate wage trajectories for four groups: documented Mexican immigrants, undocumented Mexican immigrants, U.S-born Mexican Americans, and native non-Latino whites. Our estimates reveal a 17 percent wage disparity between documented and undocumented Mexican immigrant men, and a 9 percent documented-undocumented wage disparity for Mexican immigrant women. We also find that in comparison to authorized Mexicans, undocumented Mexican immigrants have lower returns to human capital and slower wage growth.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology and Population Research Institute Pennsylvania State University.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hall
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology and Population Research Institute Pennsylvania State University.
authors.forename: Emily
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Greenman
authors.affiliation: Department of Education and Department of Sociology University of California-Irvine.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Farkas
keywords: Discrimination; Gender; Immigration; Legal Status; Mexicans; Wages