Persistent Occupational Hierarchies Among Immigrant Worker Groups in the US Labor Market

This chapter examines the phenomenon of occupational hierarchies among immigrant labor groups in the United States. Using census data for 1940–2011, the authors identify and document the existence of hierarchies among immigrant labor in major metropolitan areas as reflected by their position in the empirical distribution of occupations based on the Duncan Socioeconomic Index (SEI) values. Having established the existence and persistence of these hierarchies across regions and over time, the authors explore whether the observed data can be explained via a simple model, which allocates immigrant labor to the occupational distribution on the basis of employers’ perception of their productivity. The results suggest that while human capital characteristics are relevant determinants of location in the occupational distribution, the key factor, and the cause of persistence, is the presence of immigrant networks in regional labor markets.