Recent Immigrants' Female Spouses' Employment and Labor Force Participation in the United States

Background and Purpose:The percentage of foreign-born Americans has risen to 13% in 2014. Among American children under age 17, 16% were born in immigrant families. Over a quarter of US households have at least one immigrant person. While a growing body of research is devoted to immigrant populations’ wellbeing, little is known about the differential economic access of the principal (the main applicant to permanent residency) and spouse (the wife of the applicant). Compared to the principals, their wives may experience different social and economic challenges and labor market experiences. Multiple studies have pointed out the critical role employment plays in women’s economic wellbeing; yet, empirical studies evaluating the employment of immigrants’ female spouses are very few. In this paper, we addressed the following question: How are male immigrants’ pathways to legal immigration associated with their female spouses’ employment status, after controlling for their acculturation, human capital, and demographic factors?

Methods:We analyzed 1,750 immigrant families in which the principal immigrants are male, using the New Immigrant Survey 2003 data. This is the only nationally representative study available that follows a cohort of new legal immigrants in the United States. The descriptive and logistic regression analyses were conducted to investigate the association between the male principals’ immigrant visa categories and their spouses’ employment status while controlling for other factors.

Results: About 38% of male principals accessed legal permanent residency through the employment visa category; 19% did so under the family reunification category; 18% qualified for the diversity visa category; and the remaining 25% came to the United States as refugees and asylees. As to their female spouses’ employment status, 58% were unemployed; 30% held a full-time job; 12% had a part-time job. Multiple logistic regression showed that the wives of principals with a family visa were 49% less likely to have a full-time job (OR=.51; CI=.32-.83) compared to the wives of principals with an employment visa. Moreover, the wives of principals with refugee/asylee status were 45% more likely to have a full-time job (OR=1.45; CI=1.05-2.00) compared to the wives of principals with an employment visa. Also, wives of principals who did not have any job were 44% less likely to have a full-time job (OR=0.56; CI=.40-.78) compared to the wives of principals who had a full-time job.   

Conclusions and implications: Over half of the wives of legal principal immigrants were unemployed in spite of attaining the legal permanent status. Financially, these women must rely on their spouse and may be at risk of abuse—economic and psychological. Additionally, these women may experience social isolation as their social interaction may be limited. It appears that women who enter the United States as a part of family reunification, such as the wives of principals, are the most isolated from the U.S. labor market. Not surprisingly, women coming as spouses of refugees are able to enter the labor force more rapidly, perhaps due to existing institutional structures and social work intervention to help these families attain employment. Additional implications are discussed.