Essays in Health, Migration, and Labor Economics

Abstract

This thesis consists of three self-contained essays in the intersection of health, migration, andlabor economics. The first chapter documents what I term the “Healthy Undocumented Immigrant Effect": undocumented immigrants are healthier than legal immigrants. I show that the undocumented immigrants’ health advantage can be attributed to the return-migrant effect. In the second chapter, I examine the spillover impact of Verify Employment Eligibility (EVerify)on highly-educated citizen women’s labor supply (particularly those with young children). Using variation in the implementation of E-Verify across states, I find that E-Verify reduces the labor supply of high-skilled citizen women by 0.3 to 1 percentage points. These estimates are larger for women with children. Supplemental analyses suggest that lower inflows of undocumented migrants is an important channel. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that E-Verify generated $6.1 billion in annual social costs of lower labor supply of high-skilled citizen women. In the third chapter, I study the effects of Secure Communities (SC), a wide-ranging immigrationenforcement program, on infant health outcomes in the United States. Using administrative birth certificate data together with event study and triple-difference designs, I find that SC increases the incidence of very low birth weight by 23% for infants of foreign-born Hispanic mothers, who were most likely to be affected by immigration enforcement. There is suggestive evidence that the results are consistent with (i) changes in maternal stress induced by deportation fear and (ii) inadequate prenatal nutrition. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the unintended social cost of immigration enforcement approaches $2 billion annually.