DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c127-635579
title: The linkage between recent immigrant workers and the domestic migration of native and settled immigrant workers in the U.S. in 2006 and 2008

description: Immigrants affect the United States in various ways.  There are a wide variety of demographic, social, economic, and fiscal effects. Although the direct effects of immigrants on the economy are small, their indirect effects are considerable. Immigrants are geographically concentrated, but their effects are distributed through migration and the economy, even to areas where there are few immigrants. One of the best ways to explore the immigrant effect is through the study of migration. Migration reflects immigrants’ effect, both directly and indirectly, through the labor and housing markets. The effect of immigrants on inter-state migration is the main topic of this dissertation. ❧ Migration is a complex phenomenon with many determinants. There are different reasons for in-migration and out-migration. Most migration studies are focused on in-migration that is studied after the moves are completed. Out-migration can yield additional information.  A separate analysis of in-migration and out-migration can provide   more precise and complete results of migration. The primary reason for inter-state migration is job-related. Economic opportunities in each state are the most important determinant of migration. However, the determinants of migration vary at different stages in the economic cycle. The year 2006 is an example of a booming economy while the year 2008 represents an economic recession. These are good years to show the different determinants of migration over the economic cycle. The new American Community Survey is utilized that provides rich local data that was not available in previous economic cycles. Native-born and foreign-born population exhibits different responses to state characteristics in the determination of migration. The native-born are more sensitive to economic conditions than foreign-born. In addition, state level characteristics and local level characteristics have different effects on migration. Inter-state migrants choose not only a new state but also the residential area where they will live. Comparing the effects of state level characteristics and local level characteristics are important in understanding migration. ❧ Data availability is a crucial factor in most empirical studies. Most migration studies have analyzed five-year migration due to that variable’s availability in the census, but five-year migration is no longer a question in the census. A new one-year migration question provided by the American Community Survey (ACS) is the major source of data for migration analysis. This change could cause a discontinuity in a long line of migration studies. This study tests for differences in behavior recorded by one-year and five-year migration questions. ❧ Space is an important concept in migration studies but has been given less attention in migration studies. Ignoring space is a cause of bias in the estimated effects. Multilevel analysis is one of the best models to fix biases due to spatial heterogeneity and spatial dependence, which are the most common biases in studies related to space. ❧ The main findings in this dissertation are the following. First, the determinants of five-year and one-year inter-state migration have minor differences with regards to individual characteristics. However, in- and out-migration results show differences between five-year and one-year migration. The results imply that the differences between five-year and one-year migration are due to area characteristics rather than individual characteristics. Second, the concentration of recent immigrants helps to explain the variation of in-migration between states, while there is only a small explanation of variation in out-migration. Third, the concentrations of recent immigrants have a negative effect on in-migration of those with the same educational attainment, especially the in-migration of foreign-born, while there is no clear effect of recent immigrants on out-migration. Fourth, concentrations of recent immigrants are important for the explanation of variation between states for native-born in-migration and for both foreign-born in-migration and out-migration. Fifth, concentrations of recent immigrants have a stronger effect on the in-migration and out-migration of the foreign-born than they do for the native-born. The domestic migration of foreign-born both into and out of states is more sensitive to recent immigrants than is the migration of the native-born. Finally, there are stronger effects of recent immigrants on domestic migration of those with the same educational attainment in 2008 than was true in 2006.