Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2014
Abstract
Public sector employment of immigrants can increase their economic assimilation and potentially improve their treatment by government. Yet, as we show using Census data from 1990, 2000, and 2009-11, immigrants are substantially under-represented in federal, state, and local governments. To understand why, we use logit analysis for federal and for state and local government employment in each time period to test whether immigrants’ weaker educational attainment and English proficiency, lower probabilities of being citizens and military veterans, and different age, gender, and race/ethnicity distributions can explain that under-representation. Disparities in education and preferential government treatment of veterans are factors, but citizenship requirements appear to be the major obstacle to immigrant employment in the public sector.
Recommended Citation
Lewis, Gregory B.; Liu, Cathy Yang; and Edwards, Jason T., "The Representation of Immigrants in Federal, State and Local Government Work Forces" (2014). PMAP Publications. 4.
https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/pmap_facpubs/4
Comments
Author accepted manuscript version of:
Lewis, Gregory, Cathy Liu, and Jason Edwards. (2014). The Representation of Immigrants in Federal, State, and Local Government Work Forces. Journal of International Migration & Integration 15.3: 469–486.
The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12134-013-0282-8.