Beyond spatial mismatch: Immigrant employment in urban America

The rapid increase of immigrant population in metropolitan areas across the United States brings significant changes to urban labor market. This study locates immigrants' labor market performance in the economic and spatial contexts of cities and examines the role of space and spatially-constructed social networks on their employment outcomes in both the general labor market and the ethnically concentrated niche sectors in particular.;Building on two distinctive theoretical frameworks: the spatial mismatch hypothesis and the social networks theories, this study examines the relative strength of spatial accessibility to job opportunities and social accessibility to ethnic networks in determining immigrants' employment status and quality in terms of wage earnings and commuting time. Particular attention is paid to low-skilled Latino immigrants who are overly represented in the urban poor population and are the foci of much policy debate.;Using Census statistics for 1990 and 2000, results from Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. indicate that suburbanization is the prevalent trend among the immigrant population and employment. During the last decade, jobs in general shifted away from where immigrants live while immigrants followed jobs and resulted in minor lessening in the overall magnitude of spatial mismatch.;On the micro level, the effect of residence in ethnically concentrated enclaves is found to vary by location and by gender. The central city is generally associated with both dampened employment rate and longer commutes, testing to spatial mismatch effect. Enclave residents in inner and outer ring suburbs, while as likely to work as non-enclave counterparts, usually commute longer to jobs, suggesting that social networks might direct them to employment outside of the local labor market. Further identifying ethnic niche industries finds that enclave residence in the suburbs, not central cities, increases the likelihood of niche employment. In general, women are more enclave-disadvantaged than men: while they rely more heavily on ethnic networks to find jobs, these jobs are of lesser quality and accessibility. These findings underscore the importance of the interaction between spatial accessibility and social context in shaping immigrants' labor market experience and the diversity of enclave and niche effects.