Journal of International Migration and Integration
Volume 15, Issue 3, 2014, Pages 469-486

The Representation of Immigrants in Federal, State, and Local Government Work Forces (Article)

Lewis G.B. , Liu C.Y. , Edwards J.T.
  • a Department of Public Management and Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, 30303, United States
  • b Department of Public Management and Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, 30303, United States
  • c Department of Public Management and Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, 30303, United States

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 2009-2011, immigrants are substantially underrepresented 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 underrepresentation. 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. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

Author Keywords

Federal, state, and local government Employment United States immigrants

Index Keywords

labor migration immigrant local government educational attainment nation state public sector employment citizenship United States federal system
Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84903889280&doi=10.1007%2fs12134-013-0282-8&partnerID=40&md5=6a4b6a192f78d37936e5bf3384020197
DOI: 10.1007/s12134-013-0282-8
ISSN: 14883473
Original Language: English