Contextualizing Immigrant Labor Market Incorporation: Legal, Demographic, and Economic Dimensions

This article provides the Work and Occupations readership with an overview of U.S. immigration trends, & it discusses some of the scholarly & public policy debates surrounding the particular labor market patterns of recent immigrants. The first section focuses on how the history of U.S. immigration policy has shaped the flow & composition of today's foreign-born workers. The second section underscores some of the demographic & economic consequences of recent large-scale immigration. The third section draws on census data to profile contemporary immigrant workers. The remainder of the article highlights the major empirical & theoretical contributions that each article makes toward understanding how different immigrant groups become inserted into U.S. employment structures. Then, it discusses recent debates in the literature on immigration & labor markets with an eye toward the current & future role of immigration policy. 1 Table, 39 References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2004.]