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Legalization and Long-Term Outcomes of Immigrant Workers

Author

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  • Claudio Deiana
  • Ludovica Giua
  • Roberto Nisticò

Abstract

This paper establishes a new fact about immigration policies: legalization has long-term effects on formal employment of undocumented immigrants and their assimilation. We exploit the broad amnesty enacted in Italy in 2002 together with rich survey data collected in 2011 on a representative sample of immigrant households to estimate the effect of regularization in the long run. Immigrants who were not eligible for the amnesty have a 14% lower probability of working in the formal sector a decade later, are subject to more severe ethnic segregation on the job and display less linguistic assimilation than their regularized counterparts.

Suggested Citation

  • Claudio Deiana & Ludovica Giua & Roberto Nisticò, 2024. "Legalization and Long-Term Outcomes of Immigrant Workers," CESifo Working Paper Series 11026, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11026
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Borjas, George J. & Edo, Anthony, 2023. "Monopsony, Efficiency, and the Regularization of Undocumented Immigrants," IZA Discussion Papers 16297, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    undocumented immigrants; amnesty program; formal employment; discrimination; segregation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • K37 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Immigration Law

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