The Occupational Effects of Immigration Bans: Evidence from Chinese Exclusion

Hannah Postel, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University

This paper studies the effects of immigration restrictions on occupational change; namely, how federal policy Exclusion shaped occupational outcomes for Chinese immigrants in the United States. Beginning in 1882 and officially in force until 1953 (effectively until 1965), Exclusion limited the total number of Chinese in the United States and imposed skill-based restrictions. I link newly digitized archival data on immigration, emigration, and mortality to the full-count census with a matching algorithm designed for Chinese names to directly measure how Chinese immigrants responded to changing immigration policies. I investigate the skill composition of migrant arrivals and departures, as well as immigrants who remained in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the ways occupational and geographic shifts are linked. The paper also explores how Chinese employment in prototypically “ethnic” industries (such as laundries and restaurants) evolved as immigration was curtailed.

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 Presented in Session 190. Disciplining Laborers Through Migration Policy