Abstract The United States is currently facing a worker shortage in the long-term care sector, which is only expected to worsen as the population ages. Immigration policy is often proposed as a solution. In this paper, we show that immigrants are already highly represented in eldercare occupations, particularly in certain types of work and in certain areas of the country. We also show that in this sector, immigrants tend to earn 10% higher wages than natives, a result suggestive of high immigrant productivity. Further analysis reveals that foreign-born eldercare workers have characteristics associated with higher-quality care; they are older and tend to have more years of education than US-born eldercare workers. An Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition reveals that about 30% of the immigrant–native wage gap in this sector cannot be explained by standard observable factors. Overall, our findings suggest that immigrants are not only capable of doing eldercare work, but are likely more productive in these roles, making immigration policy a promising tool for addressing eldercare labour shortages now and in the future.
Furtado et al. (Wed,) studied this question.