Assessing the effect of the occupational crowding of immigrants on the real wages of African American workers

Using a sample of 2,695 blacks from the 1990 national longitudinal survey of youth, the effect that immigration has on the real wages of black workers in skilled and unskilled occupations is investigated. Findings included the discovery of relatively strong negative wage effects on indigenous and non-U.S. citizen black workers who were already in the U.S. as a result of the occupational crowding of immigrants into unskilled occupations. The real wages of skilled black workers were not affected by having a large relative number of immigrants in their occupations.