Working Paper: NBER ID: w30666
Authors: Gordon H. Hanson; Pia Orrenius; Madeline Zavodny
Abstract: The share of US residents who were born in Latin America and the Caribbean plateaued recently, after a half century of rapid growth. Our review of the evidence on the US immigration wave from the region suggests that it bears many similarities to the major immigration waves of the 19th and early 20th centuries, that the demographic and economic forces behind Latin American migrant inflows appear to have weakened across most sending countries, and that a continued slowdown of immigration from Latin America post-pandemic has the potential to disrupt labor-intensive sectors in many US regional labor markets.
Keywords: Immigration; Latin America; Labor Markets
JEL Codes: F20; J61; O15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| weakened demographic and economic forces (J19) | reduced migration to the U.S. (F22) |
| reduced migration to the U.S. (F22) | disruption of labor-intensive sectors in the U.S. (F66) |
| demographic pressures and economic volatility in Latin America (N16) | reduced migration to the U.S. (F22) |
| historical comparisons of immigration waves (J11) | insights into current immigration trends (K37) |