Spillover Effects of Immigration Policies on Children’s Human Capital
with Benhard Schmidpeter
We study the spillover effects of immigration enforcement policies on children’s human capital. Exploiting the temporal and geographic variation in the enactment of immigration enforcement policies, we find that English language skills of U.S.-born children with at least one undocumented parent is negatively affected by the introduction of immigration enforcement laws. We show that the reduction in children’s English skills is caused by changes in parental investment behavior. Parents are less likely to enroll their children in non-mandatory pre-school and reduce social contacts as response to immigration laws. We provide evidence that this behavioral change is driven by increasing fear of being detected and deported. We also show that parents substitute children’s time spent in formal non- mandatory pre-school education with parental time spent at home, but that parental time investments are not as productive as time spent in formal education. These developments lead ultimately to a reduction in children’s human capital.
Working Paper: Coming Soon
with Benhard Schmidpeter
We study the spillover effects of immigration enforcement policies on children’s human capital. Exploiting the temporal and geographic variation in the enactment of immigration enforcement policies, we find that English language skills of U.S.-born children with at least one undocumented parent is negatively affected by the introduction of immigration enforcement laws. We show that the reduction in children’s English skills is caused by changes in parental investment behavior. Parents are less likely to enroll their children in non-mandatory pre-school and reduce social contacts as response to immigration laws. We provide evidence that this behavioral change is driven by increasing fear of being detected and deported. We also show that parents substitute children’s time spent in formal non- mandatory pre-school education with parental time spent at home, but that parental time investments are not as productive as time spent in formal education. These developments lead ultimately to a reduction in children’s human capital.
Working Paper: Coming Soon