Abstract
Using nationally representative survey data, this research note examines the association between immigrant legal status and poverty in the United States. Our objective is to test whether estimates of this association vary depending on the method used to infer legal status in survey data, focusing on two approaches in particular: (1) inferring legal status using a logical imputation method that ignores the existence of legal-status survey questions (logical approach); and (2) defining legal status based on survey questions about legal status (survey approach). We show that the two methods yield contrasting conclusions. In models using the logical approach, among noncitizens, being a legal permanent resident (LPR) is counterintuitively associated with a significantly greater net probability of being below the poverty line compared with their noncitizen peers without LPR status. Conversely, using the survey approach to measure legal status, LPR status is associated with a lower net probability of living in poverty, which is in line with a growing body of qualitative and small-sample evidence. Consistent with simulation experiments carried out by Van Hook et al. (2015), the findings call for a more cautious approach to interpreting research results based on legal status imputations and for greater attention to potential biases introduced by various methodological approaches to inferring individuals’ legal status in survey data. Consequently, the approach used for measuring legal status has important implications for future research on immigration and legal status.
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Data Availability
The data set used is publicly available at https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/sipp/data/datasets.2008.html. Analysis code is available upon reasonable request from corresponding author.
Notes
The lawful permanent residence (LPR) visa is often referred to as a “green card.” To minimize redundancy, we use “LPR” and “green card” interchangeably.
Individuals who failed to respond to certain questions were allocated values by the Census Bureau, as is customary in most publicly released census microdata. We treat these values the same as self-reports.
We omit criterion b—“Is a citizen”—from our logical imputation because our sample is already limited to noncitizen immigrants. Our focus is on lawful permanent residents and noncitizen, non-LPRs.
Because of the absence of national origin information in the 2008 public-use SIPP, we are unable to identify Cuban nationals. We instead use a proxy that identifies individuals born in the Caribbean who either speak Spanish at home or identify as Hispanic.
If someone’s spouse is identified as legal using any of the criteria in this list, then that individual is also coded as legal.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank the fellows of the Public Policy Lab of the College of Liberal Arts at Temple University for helpful comments and suggestions. Spence also acknowledges funding through a fellowship with the Public Policy Lab.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Cody Spence performed all data management and statistical analysis tasks and wrote all portions of the manuscript. James Bachmeier wrote some portions of the manuscript, reviewed and edited all portions of the manuscript, and contributed to the development of methods and interpretation of data. Claire Altman and Christal Hamilton reviewed and edited all portions of the manuscript.
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Spence, C., Bachmeier, J.D., Altman, C.E. et al. The Association Between Legal Status and Poverty Among Immigrants: A Methodological Caution. Demography 57, 2327–2335 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-020-00933-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-020-00933-0