Immigration and US native workers’ wages: differential responses by education

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess how wages of US native workers with various educational backgrounds are affected by immigration. Design/methodology/approach – This paper estimates the responses of these workers’ wages to the concentration of immigrants with various educational backgrounds in their local labour markets, using 1980-2000 US Census data and instrumental variables approach. Findings – Wages of native high school dropouts fall slightly in the presence of immigrant high school dropouts and high school graduates; wages of native high school graduates fall slightly in the presence of immigrant high school graduates, but rise in the presence of immigrants with higher levels of education; wages of native workers with some college education fall slightly with larger concentrations of immigrant high school graduates but rise slightly with larger concentrations of immigrant college graduates; and there is no evidence that wages of native college graduates are affected by immigration. Originality/value – No previous studies have considered these possibilities when assessing the impact of immigration on native workers’ wages.