Five Questions For Everett Henderson
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April 12, 2007 1. Why is Arkansas' immigrant population growing so fast? The state economy is growing fast, particularly northwest Arkansas, the corporate home to Wal-Mart—the world's largest retailer. Many Wal-Mart suppliers have flocked to the area. It is also home to Tyson's Chicken, plus many trucking and warehousing facilities. Northwest Arkansas' industrial concentration has brought many jobs, particularly at the high and low ends of the income scale. Opportunities for the college educated and those with MBAs are plentiful. So are opportunities for low-skilled immigrants in poultry and other food-processing businesses. Employers used to complain about high turnover in those jobs before the recent immigration wave. It's expensive to train—and then lose—a worker. Immigrants are generally willing to stay on the job longer. Combined with Arkansas' low cost of living, the jobs have become a big attraction. Recruitment by employers, combined with word-of-mouth immigrant information networks, works like a magnet. These jobs offer considerably higher wages than low-skilled immigrants would typically earn in their own countries. And, Arkansas' affordable housing and less costly lifestyle—when compared to many other parts of the United States—make it possible to live decently on what they earn. 2. How do these foreign-born workers contribute to the state's economy? The obvious … by participating in the labor force—albeit at the low-end of the skill sector—but also by allowing manufacturers to stay in Arkansas. Without low-cost workers, some of the manufacturing plants might have shut down. That matters because if a company leaves then the management also leaves. It's not just low-wage jobs that are lost. On the higher end of the skill spectrum, 15 percent of the state's doctors were foreign born in 2000—a time when only 3 percent of the state's population was foreign born. Currently, 4 percent are immigrants. It's often difficult for some of the smaller towns and cities to attract doctors who will stay in the community. Foreign-born doctors willing to live in those small towns provide vital health care services. Consumer spending is also a key contribution. Workers tend to spend money where they make it. That increases local business revenues and profits. Volume two of our report highlights the economic impacts and opportunities for local retailers to attract even more of the immigrant dollar by catering to foreign tastes. That's money that the county or locality could be capturing, but currently is flowing outside of the state. As taxpayers, immigrants provide an economic boost. They work and pay income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes—infusing federal, state, and local budgets. 3. What challenges do immigrant families with children face in Arkansas? The children of Central American and Mexican immigrants tend to be the worst off of the children of Arkansas' foreign born. Many of their parents arrive with very little education. About 74 percent of their fathers didn't graduate from high school (in families where the father is present). The vast majority of these fathers have at most a ninth-grade education, so they get shunted into lower-wage jobs. Many less-educated fathers have a harder time finding year-round, full-time jobs. This leads to higher poverty rates—37 percent among the children of Central American and Mexican immigrants. That said, it's still a lower child-poverty rate than among the native-born African-American community (41 percent). Besides poverty, limited English proficiency poses problems. Most of these children (in Mexican/Central American families) have at least one parent who doesn't speak English well. Often, both don't. That makes it hard to communicate with school administrators. Without that, parents may not understand how their children are faring in school. If English isn't being consistently spoken in the household, the children may not learn the language as well as they could. And speaking English is key to successful integration. English proficiency is also correlated with wages. These drawbacks can hurt the second generation. Overcrowding is also a problem in Central American and Mexican family homes. It's far more likely to be an issue for this group than for any other immigrant or native group. The upshot might not be so bad, though, if the reason for the overcrowding is that there are additional working adults present in the home, since they bring in extra income. Immigrant families are at least as likely as native families to have two married parents in the home, which offsets some of these households' challenges. The presence of two parents offers stability and provides a resource for child care, as immigrant mothers often stay at home with their children. 4. How does Arkansas compare with other places you've examined? The immigrant population is more diverse in the DC Metro Area. Half of the immigrants in Arkansas are Mexican. No single country stands out and dominates in the DC Area. In Arkansas, only 18 percent of immigrants are from Asia, compared with a third of the DC Area's foreign-born. Likewise, a significant share of immigrants in the DC region come from Africa, while very few Africans call Arkansas home. We also profiled immigrants in Louisville, Kentucky. There are Mexicans there, but they aren't as predominant as they are in Arkansas. Louisville has a significant African community and a larger share of Asians. In Connecticut, we found that 40 percent of the immigrants are from Europe, compared to only 13 percent in Arkansas. Manufacturing employs by far the most immigrants in Arkansas—more than 40 percent of all employed immigrant workers. In Connecticut or Louisville, you don't see that dominance of one industry. It's more like 20 percent manufacturing in both places. 5. What lessons can be drawn from your research for policymakers? We sliced and diced the Arkansas data in many ways. By region of birth, by industry, etc., and often found wage differentials. Education, however, was the great equalizer. When we compared the immigrants to the native born by education level, the wage gap disappeared. To me, that says that adult education would probably be a wise investment. Not only skills training, but also English as second language training. The second generation could use strong programs for kids raised in non-English speaking homes. With that leg up, they might move up the economic ladder more easily. |
