The impact of immigration on unemployment and earnings among racial minorities in the United States

The existing immigration literature presents inconsistencies and contradictions. Some studies suggest that immigration has no effect on the earnings and employment levels of native‐born minorities, while others offer contrary evidence. In an effort to make more progress, a study was done to examine the impact of immigration on unemployment and earnings among racial minorities in the US. Employing United States census data covering 1940 to 1980, and using states and a sample of metropolitan statistical areas as units of analysis, this study found that increases in immigration in some periods of US history had significant negative effects on employment levels among racial minorities in the United States. Specifically, results of the regression analysis showed that, in 1970, a standard deviation change in immigration increased unemployment among minorities by nearly 14 per cent, while in 1980 unemployment increased by nearly 10 per cent, given a standard deviation increase in immigration. With regard to earnings, the study found that immigration decreases minority income. In 1980 a one per cent increase in immigration reduced racial minority earnings, on average, by nearly $25.32. Analysis also showed that low skill levels among minorities, as well as family breakdown may in part be responsible for high minority unemployment and low earnings. For example, in 1980 a one per cent increase in divorce reduced minority earnings, on average, by $65.89. Low minority skill levels reduced earnings by $104 on average. However, the deleterious effects of immigration on racial minority unemployment and earnings remain even after adjusting for the potentially confounding effects of skill levels and divorce. Policy implications of the findings are discussed at length, and suggestions are proposed for future research.     

Welfare state type,labour markets and refugees: a comparison of Jews from the former Soviet Union in the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany

The massive exodus of Jews from the former Soviet Union [FSU] has been accompanied by welfare state retrenchment and labour market restructuration in the two preferred destination countries of refugee resettlement: the United States and Germany. This study compares the resettlement policies and outcomes of FSU Jews and shows how the context of resettlement, viz. differences in welfare state type, labour market formation and host ethnic community, yield marked differences in formal job market adaptation. FSU Jews in Germany are almost twice as likely as their American counterparts to rely on some form of refugee cash assistance for their primary means of support, whereas the American cohort is twice as likely to be employed in the formal labour market. However, informal labour market adaptation is quite similar. Findings suggest unwitting system convergence, each exercising a different form of social exclusion - welfare stigma and under employment for refugees in the United States, and high labour market regulation in Germany.     

Homicide and fertility rates in the United States: a comment

The negative correlation between annual homicide and fertility rates reported by Lyster (1974) is confirmed by statistical analysis extended to show that the correlation is largely confined to the post-World War 2 and holds for whites and nonwhites in nearly equal degree. Data support the hypothesis that homicide and fertility rates are responding to variations in psychological stress among young adults associated with swings in relative cohort size, the proportion of those ages 15-29 to those ages 30-64. It is suggested that periods of increase in the relative number of young men weakens their labor market position, and the result is to increase psychological stress, to discourage traditional role fulfillment such as family building, and to encourage antisocial behavior, indexed here by homicide rate.     

Microbiology education in the United States: the issue of balance

World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology -     

Abandonment and accumulation: embryonic futures in the United States and Ecuador

When frozen embryos are publically debated in the United States, they are most often positioned as having two possible future trajectories: (1) as individual humans and (2) as contributors to stem cell research. Long-term embryo accumulation threatens both of these futures. An accumulated embryo is stuck in a clinic, held back from having an individual future or from contributing to science. There are other kinds of futures, though. For some patients in the United States and Ecuador, where I conducted ethnographic research, future reckoning involves a vision of responsibility toward embryos embedded within a specific family. For these patients, frozen embryo donation to another family or to science constitutes abandonment. The future at stake is not that of an individual embryo's life, but a group's future who would abandon one of its own. These patients would rather destroy embryos than freeze them for a future away from their relations. [Ecuador, United States, in     

NAFTA Stories: Fears and Hopes in Mexico and the United States

NAFTA Stories: Fears and Hopes in Mexico and the United States. Ann E. Kingsolver. Boulder: Lynn Rienner Publishers, 2001. 252 pp.     

Wives and Warriors: Women and the Military in the United States and Canada

Wives and Warriors: Women and the Military in the United States and Canada. Laurie Weinstein and Christie C. White. eds. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey, 1997. 252 pp.