Workers with limited English skills may suffer adverse effects when states declare English the official language. If employers believe official English laws allow or require them to adopt workplace English‐only rules that lower the demand for limited-English‐proficient workers, such laws may harm individuals who do not speak English well. Using data from the 1980 and 1990 censuses, I estimate whether the earnings of limited-English‐proficient workers who live in states that adopted official English laws declined relative to other workers. The results suggest a substantial decline in the annual earnings of men with limited English proficiency.

Madeline Zavodny of University of North Florida reviews “Border Economies: Cities Bridging the U.S. – Mexico Divide” by James Gerber. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Explores urban economies on the US–Mexico border, illustrating the ways that these economies interact and shape each other's development.”

Immigration may affect the likelihood that US natives major in science or engineering. Foreign-born students may crowd US natives out of science or engineering, or they may have positive spillovers on US natives that attract or retain them in those fields. This study uses data on college majors from the 2009–11 American Community Surveys to examine the effect of the immigrant share in US natives’ age cohort while they are in high school or in college. We find some evidence that immigration adversely affects whether US-born women who graduated from college majored in a science or engineering field.

Unwanted children may be more subject to child abuse and neglect by their parents or care-takers than are desired children, in part because such children may be born and raised in less favorable circumstances that foster maltreatment. In addition, parents may be more likely to maltreat unwanted children; sociological and medical studies suggest a link between unplanned births and subsequent child abuse (Susan J. Zuravin, 1987). Child abuse and neglect may be linked to abortion availability if reduced access to abortion providers leads to more births of unwanted or unplanned children and to maltreatment of some of these children, a possibility investigated in this paper. A variety of evidence suggests that abortion availability affects fertility behavior and child outcomes. Increased abortion availability leads to lower birth rates and higher abortion rates (see e.g., Phillip Levine et al., 1999). In addi- tion, abortion legalization appears to have led to an improvement in the average living condi- tions of children by reducing the number of children who would have lived in single-parent families, lived in poverty, received welfare, and died as infants (Jonathan Gruber et al., 1999). The improvement in child outcomes appears to be primarily due to changes in the composition of women who give birth, with the largest fertility declines occurring among young, unmarried, or nonwhite women. Such nonrandom selection may lead to less maltreatment of children if abortion access reduces births among groups where maltreatment is more prevalent. Alternatively, abortion availability may reduce the number of unwanted children born to all women, leading to lower rates of child abuse and neglect. We use data on the number of reports of child abuse and child neglect to examine the rela- tionship between abortion legalization, post- legalization restrictions on abortions, and child maltreatment rates. The results suggest that le- galization lowered total reported rates of child maltreatment. The effect of Medicaid funding restrictions, parental involvement laws, and mandatory waiting periods is unclear in our results.

The United States currently provides Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to more than 300,000 immigrants. TPS is typically granted if dangerous conditions prevail in migrants' home countries. Individuals with TPS are allowed to stay and work in the United States temporarily. Little is known about how TPS affects beneficiaries, most of whom are unauthorized prior to receiving TPS. Our results suggest that TPS eligibility leads to higher employment rates among women and higher earnings among men. The results have implications for recent programs that allow millions of unauthorized immigrants to receive temporary permission to remain and work in the United States.

The United States is beginning to emerge from the deepest downturn the country has experienced since the Great Depression. As of October 2009, the number of unemployed persons had risen by 8.2 million since the “Great Recession” began in December 2007. All demographic groups have experienced job losses, but some groups have been more adversely affected than others. Repeating the pattern of most previous downturns, the recession’s impact has been worst for low education and minority workers. One group that has been particularly hard hit is Mexican immigrants. Data from the Current Population Survey indicate that between the first quarter of 2007 and the second quarter of 2009, the unemployment rate among Mexican immigrants rose from 4.2 percent to 11.3 percent, and their employment rate dropped by 5 percentage points. In contrast, during that period the unemployment rate among non-Hispanic white natives rose from 3.7 percent to 7.8 percent, and their employment rate fell by 2.6 percentage points. Mexican immigrants tend to be particularly vulnerable to economic downturns because of their relatively low skill levels. They make up one-fourth of all workers who do not have a high school diploma or equivalent and over one-half of workers who have completed at most eighth grade. When the economy slows, employers look to shed their least productive employees first. Employers tend to invest less in training low skilled workers and therefore have less