abstract: 'This study evaluates how authorization status shapes job transitions

  among Mexican and Central American immigrants in the United States.

  Specifically, using data from the Survey of Income and Program

  Participation, we impute legal status and track employment histories for

  authorized and unauthorized workers, as well as native-born

  counterparts, in the less skilled labor market. We distinguish job moves

  based on changes in occupations and employers; and by linking workers

  jobs to expected wages in their occupations, we are able to determine

  whether job transitions result in occupational upgrades or downgrades.

  Results reveal that unauthorized immigrants have lower adjusted rates of

  job mobility, consistent with arguments that their lack of work

  authorization traps their employment. Moreover, when unauthorized

  migrants do change jobs, their transitions are characterized by a

  process of occupational churning in which they cycle between similarly

  positioned jobs and have low rates of upward mobility, both within and

  across firms. We also test the possibility that the wage returns to job

  mobility are conditioned by legal status. Finally, we find that the

  penalties to job mobility associated with unauthorized status are more

  severe for women than men, potentially because of their high levels of

  segregation in socially isolating jobs.'
affiliation: 'Hall, M (Corresponding Author), Univ Washington, 206 Raitt Hall,Box
  353412, Seattle, WA 98195 USA.

  Hall, Matthew, Univ Washington, 206 Raitt Hall,Box 353412, Seattle, WA 98195 USA.

  Greenman, Emily, Penn State Univ, Populat Res Inst, University Pk, PA 16802 USA.

  Yi, Youngmin, Cornell Univ, Sociol, Ithaca, NY 14853 USA.'
author: Hall, Matthew and Greenman, Emily and Yi, Youngmin
author-email: hallmatt@uw.edu
author_list:
- family: Hall
  given: Matthew
- family: Greenman
  given: Emily
- family: Yi
  given: Youngmin
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1093/sf/soy086
eissn: 1534-7605
files: []
issn: 0037-7732
journal: SOCIAL FORCES
keywords-plus: 'LABOR-MARKET; UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS; OCCUPATIONAL-MOBILITY; EMPLOYMENT

  RELATIONS; GENDER-DIFFERENCES; UNITED-STATES; LEGAL STATUS; INEQUALITY;

  ASSIMILATION; PRESTIGE'
language: English
month: MAR
number: '3'
number-of-cited-references: '63'
orcid-numbers: Yi, Youngmin/0000-0003-0352-3301
pages: 999-1028
papis_id: 3ee58fc7e3efa4ecd1900429b16d8c5d
ref: Hall2019jobmobility
times-cited: '23'
title: Job Mobility among Unauthorized Immigrant Workers
type: Article
unique-id: WOS:000462178200003
usage-count-last-180-days: '3'
usage-count-since-2013: '21'
volume: '97'
web-of-science-categories: Sociology
year: '2019'