IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/usf/wpaper/2023-02.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Effects of Occupational License Access on Undocumented Immigrants: Evidence from the California Reform

Author

Listed:
  • Bobby W. Chung

    (University of South Florida)

Abstract

In 2014, California lifted legal work status requirement for dozens of occupational licenses - a major obstacle for undocumented immigrants in the US to access professional jobs. This paper assesses its effects on the employment outcome of undocumented immigrants in California. Analysing likely undocumented immigrants in the American Community Survey, I find that the law increased their employment, particularly in lower-skill or blue-collar licensed occupations, and older or Hispanic workers. I also find the law did not crowd out documented or domestic workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Bobby W. Chung, 2023. "Effects of Occupational License Access on Undocumented Immigrants: Evidence from the California Reform," Working Papers 2023-02, University of South Florida, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:usf:wpaper:2023-02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.usf.edu/arts-sciences/departments/economics/documents/wpaper/2023-02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hainmueller, Jens, 2012. "Entropy Balancing for Causal Effects: A Multivariate Reweighting Method to Produce Balanced Samples in Observational Studies," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 25-46, January.
    2. Xia, Xing, 2021. "Barrier to Entry or Signal of Quality? The Effects of Occupational Licensing on Minority Dental Assistants," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    3. Maury Gittleman & Mark A. Klee & Morris M. Kleiner, 2018. "Analyzing the Labor Market Outcomes of Occupational Licensing," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 57-100, January.
    4. Brenton Peterson & Sonal Pandya & David Leblang, 2014. "Doctors with borders: occupational licensing as an implicit barrier to high skill migration," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 45-63, July.
    5. Marc T. Law & Mindy S. Marks, 2009. "Effects of Occupational Licensing Laws on Minorities: Evidence from the Progressive Era," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(2), pages 351-366, May.
    6. Bobby Chung & Jian Zou, 2021. "Teacher Licensing, Teacher Supply, and Student Achievement: Nationwide Implementation of edTPA," Working Papers 2021-039, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shishir Shakya & Alicia Plemmons & Conor Norris, 2024. "Military Spouse Licensing: A Case Study of Registered Nurses within Military Bases Proximity," Working Papers 24-09, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bobby W. Chung, 2024. "Effects of occupational license access on undocumented immigrants evidence from the California reform," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 65(1), pages 64-83, June.
    2. Kihwan Bae & Edward Timmons, 2023. "Now You Can Take It with You: Effects of Occupational Credential Recognition on Labor Market Outcomes," Working Papers 23-03, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    3. Chung, Bobby W., 2022. "The costs and potential benefits of occupational licensing: A case of real estate license reform," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    4. Dustin Chambers & Colin O’Reilly, 2022. "The economic theory of regulation and inequality," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 193(1), pages 63-78, October.
    5. Koumenta, Maria & Pagliero, Mario & Rostam-Afschar, Davud, 2020. "Occupational licensing and the gender wage gap," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 13-2020, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.
    6. Peter Blair & Bobby Chung, 2017. "Job Market Signaling through Occupational Licensing," Working Papers 2017-50, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    7. Katharine G. Abraham & Melissa S. Kearney, 2020. "Explaining the Decline in the US Employment-to-Population Ratio: A Review of the Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(3), pages 585-643, September.
    8. Bobby Chung & Jian Zou, 2021. "Teacher Licensing, Teacher Supply, and Student Achievement: Nationwide Implementation of edTPA," Working Papers 2021-039, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    9. Mengjie Lyu & Tingting Zhang & Hua Ye, 2023. "Labour market impacts of occupational licensing and delicensing: New evidence from China," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 61(4), pages 895-921, December.
    10. Xia, Xing, 2021. "Barrier to Entry or Signal of Quality? The Effects of Occupational Licensing on Minority Dental Assistants," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    11. Noghanibehambari, Hamid & Fletcher, Jason, 2023. "Long-Term Health Benefits of Occupational Licensing: Evidence from Midwifery Laws," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    12. Peter Q. Blair & Bobby W. Chung, 2019. "How Much of Barrier to Entry is Occupational Licensing?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 57(4), pages 919-943, December.
    13. Baird Matthew D. & Bozick Robert & Zaber Melanie A., 2022. "Beyond traditional academic degrees: The labor market returns to occupational credentials in the United States," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 11(1), pages 1-38, January.
    14. Brown, Xin, 2023. "Labor market impacts of state-level occupational licensing of undocumented immigrants," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(4), pages 478-496.
    15. Kanazawa, Mark Tooru, 2023. "The Efficiency of Occupational Licensing during the Gilded and Progressive Eras: Evidence from Judicial Review," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(4), pages 1221-1252, December.
    16. Veronika Lukesch & Thomas Zwick, 2024. "Do outside options drive wage inequalities in retained jobs? Evidence from a natural experiment," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 62(1), pages 127-153, March.
    17. Philipp Lergetporer & Jens Ruhose & Lisa Simon, 2018. "Entry Barriers and the Labor Market Outcomes of Incumbent Workers: Evidence from a Deregulation Reform in the German Crafts Sector," CESifo Working Paper Series 7274, CESifo.
    18. Suyoun Han & Morris M. Kleiner, 2016. "Analyzing the Influence of Occupational Licensing Duration and Grandfathering on Labor Market Outcomes," NBER Working Papers 22810, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Ben Posmanick & Alex Obie & Bobby Chung, 2024. "Licensed Professionals and Corporate Board Performance: The Effect of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on the Audit Committee," Working Papers 2024-03, University of South Florida, Department of Economics.
    20. Morikawa, Masayuki, 2018. "Occupational licenses and labor market outcomes in Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 45-56.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Occupational licensing; Undocumented immigrants; Employment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations
    • K37 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Immigration Law

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:usf:wpaper:2023-02. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Diogo Baerlocher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deusfus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.