PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Chloe N. East
AU  - Andrea Velásquez
TI  - Unintended Consequences of Immigration Enforcement: Household Services and High-Educated Mothers’ Work
AID  - 10.3368/jhr.0920-11197R1
DP  - 2022 May 09
TA  - Journal of Human Resources
PG  - 0920-11197R1
4099  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2022/05/02/jhr.0920-11197R1.short
4100  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2022/05/02/jhr.0920-11197R1.full
AB  - Immigration enforcement has intensified in the U.S., however, there is little evidence on its effect on U.S.-born individuals’ labor outcomes. Exploiting the staggered rollout of a large, federal enforcement policy–Secure Communities (SC)–across local areas, we estimate a difference-in-differences model with time and location fixed effects. We find that SC reduced the labor supply of college-educated U.S.-born mothers with young children. If SC exposure occurred when children are below age 3, the negative effects on labor supply persist over time. We further show increased cost of outsourcing household production, due to reduced undocumented immigrants’ labor supply, is an important mechanism.