Collaborative Research: Enclaves, Labor Markets, and the Locational Choices of U.S. Immigrants in Economic Boom and Bust

2007年，外国出生人口在美国人口中所占的比例几乎达到了创纪录的12.6%。越来越多的美国移民在加州和其他传统门户州以外定居。在过去的20年里，移民人口在南部和中西部迅速增长，这些地区在半个世纪前开始的移民增长中相对没有受到影响。这些地区的人口增长来自自然增长，但更重要的是来自本地出生人口的迁入。信贷推动的繁荣吸引了许多移民到这些新地方，现在已经失败了。迁移行为也发生了变化。越来越少的人（包括移民和本土出生的人）跨州迁移。移民也在放缓。一些经历过人口快速增长的州现在正面临人口下降。这个研究项目将记录外国出生的移民在国内的定居模式，并将其与本地出生的人口进行比较。调查人员将特别关注美国境内的美国出生和外国出生的移民系统，并对分析这两个系统如何随时间变化特别感兴趣，特别强调2008-2010年的经济危机。他们将在最近的经济衰退背景下比较美国境内移民的流动和美国出生人口的流动，并特别强调确定外国出生和美国出生的工人对劳动力市场信号的反应是否相同。调查人员将检验一种假设，即移民会像美国出生的工人一样，为了应对当地的经济危机而在美国境内迁移，离开高失业率的地区，前往就业前景更好的地区。他们还将试图确定移民是否会更不愿意离开移民聚居地，以及当他们搬迁时，他们是否会被这些聚居地吸引。通过研究移民如何应对来自同一种族群体的人的飞地的吸引力和就业机会的地理位置，通过考虑这些反应如何因技能和教育水平以及种族而异，并考虑移民行为在最近的经济困难时期与在普遍繁荣的20世纪90年代发生的情况有何不同，调查人员将解决劳动力市场的地理位置和作为移民系统驱动因素的民族飞地之间的核心理论紧张关系。本研究项目的智力价值将来自于衡量它们对整个经济周期内移民的影响。积极的更广泛的影响将包括通过学术和更实用的媒体频繁和及时地发布有关经济衰退期间及其后果中不断变化的定居地理和移民就业的信息。该项目还将为本科生和研究生以及博士后研究员提供教育和培训机会。

The foreign-born share of the U.S. population has risen to almost a record proportion, 12.6 percent in 2007. Immigrants to the U.S. increasingly are settling outside California and other traditional gateway states. In the last 20 years, immigrant populations have grown rapidly in the South and Midwest, regions that previously had been relatively untouched by the upswing in immigration that began half a century ago. Population growth in these areas stemmed from natural increase but more importantly from the in-migration of the native born. The credit-fueled boom that drew many immigrants to these new locations now has fizzled. Migration behavior also has changed. Fewer people (both immigrants and native-born) are migrating across state lines. Immigration also has slowed. Some states that had experienced rapid population growth now are facing population declines. This research project will document the settlement patterns of foreign-born immigrants within the country and compare them to the native-born population. The investigators will look specifically at US-born and foreign-born migration systems within the U.S. and are especially interested in analyzing how these two systems change over time, with a particular emphasis on the economic crisis of 2008-2010. They will compare the movement of immigrants within the US with movements of U.S.-born people in the context of the recent recession, with special emphasis given to determining whether foreign-born and U.S.-born workers respond to labor market signals in the same way. The investigators will test the hypothesis that immigrants will migrate within the U.S. in response to local economic crises in ways much like U.S.-born workers, leaving areas of high unemployment for areas with better job prospects. They also will seek to determine whether immigrants will be more reluctant to leave immigrant enclaves and that they will be drawn to these enclaves when they do move.By examining how migrants respond to the pull of enclaves of people from the same ethnic group and the geography of employment opportunities, by considering how these responses vary by skill and education level as well as by ethnic group, and by considering how migration behavior may differ in more recent economic hard times from what occurred in the generally prosperous era of the 1990s, the investigators will address a core theoretical tension between the geography of labor markets and ethnic enclaves as drivers of migration systems. The project's intellectual merit of this research will result from the measurement of their effects on immigrant internal migration across the economic cycle. Positive broader impacts will include the frequent and timely release of information on the evolving settlement geography and employment of immigrants during this recession and its aftermath through both scholarly and more applied media. The project also will provide education and training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students and a postdoctoral researcher.