Unemployment Insurance Receipt and Unemployment Durations of Immigrants

Abstract

A dramatic demographic change in the labor market in recent years has been the fast-growing number of immigrant workers. Two questions have received considerable research attention: immigrants’ assimilation in the labor market and their use of public programs. We contribute new evidence on both issues. We found that eligible immigrants were less likely to receive unemployment insurance [UI] benefits than natives, after controlling for immigrant and native differences in observed characteristics. Moreover, there are large differences among various immigrant groups. Immigrants who were naturalized citizens had a slightly higher UI recipiency probability than natives, whereas noncitizens had significantly lower probabilities of filing for UI conditional on eligibility. We also found evidence of immigrants’ assimilation in the job search outcome. Although immigrants had longer unemployment duration than natives on average, immigrants who have resided in the country for a long time and were naturalized citizens had no different unemployment duration than natives.