Low Skilled Immigration and Work-Fertility Tradeoffs Among High Skilled US Natives

This article examines the impact of low skilled immigration on the childbearing and labor supply decisions of high-education female natives of the United States. The authors find that an influx of low skilled immigrants to a city attenuates the negative relationship between female labor force participation (LFP) and fertility, leading to an increase in the proportion of women that both work and have a young child in the home. The authors argue that the smaller LFP-fertility tradeoff attributable to immigrant workers arises due to reductions in cost of childrearing. Whereas most immigration research focuses on the reduced employment prospects of natives, this paper considers the potential benefits of immigration to high skilled native women.