AEA Papers and Proceedings
ISSN 2574-0768 (Print) | ISSN 2574-0776 (Online)
The Birth of Mass Unauthorized Immigration in the United States
AEA Papers and Proceedings
(pp. 337–343)
Abstract
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 imposed, for the first time in US history, annual numerical restrictions on lawful immigration from the Western Hemisphere. This paper introduces and implements a method for estimating highly granular local unauthorized rates in the wake of the surge in Latin American immigration that ensued. Using within-state, cross-county variation in these estimated unauthorized rates for foreign-born Mexican women and multiple comparison groups, we then estimate how maternal legal status affects the health of US-born—and thus US-citizen—children. We find that maternal authorization increases birth weight in the second generation.Citation
Cascio, Elizabeth U., Ethan G. Lewis, and Aryen Shrestha. 2026. "The Birth of Mass Unauthorized Immigration in the United States." AEA Papers and Proceedings 116: 337–343. DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20261098Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- I12 Health Behavior
- J13 Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
- J15 Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
- J16 Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
- J18 Demographic Economics: Public Policy
- K37 Immigration Law