Table 6.
Economic characteristics of immigrants taking different pathways to legalization
| Demographic characteristic | Total respondents (%) | Type of prior U.S. experience |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New arrival (%) | Illegal border crosser (%) | Visa abuser (%) | Non-resident visitor (%) | Non-resident worker (%) | Student/exchange (%) | Refugee/asylee (%) | ||
| Currently employed | 57.1 | 46.6 | 58.8 | 73.1 | 44.8 | 99.2 | 79.7 | 59.5 |
| Occupation | ||||||||
| Exec/Prof/Mang/Tech | 21.9 | 10.0 | 12.3 | 23.6 | 20.8 | 63.7 | 66.3 | 9.7 |
| Sales/clerical | 17.3 | 20.0 | 15.4 | 21.0 | 18.5 | 4.6 | 15.4 | 18.4 |
| Household service | 7.2 | 6.6 | 9.4 | 4.9 | 9.4 | 5.4 | – | 11.1 |
| Other service | 18.4 | 18.3 | 19.7 | 19.1 | 26.8 | 13.9 | 13.5 | 12.9 |
| Agriculture | 3.0 | 1.5 | 11.3 | 1.5 | – | – | – | – |
| Operative | 15.1 | 20.4 | 15.9 | 13.4 | 13.4 | 1.5 | 2.6 | 22.1 |
| Transportation/moving | 2.0 | 1.5 | 3.1 | 3.4 | 2.3 | – | – | 1.8 |
| Laborer | 15.1 | 21.7 | 12.8 | 13.2 | 8.9 | 10.8 | 2.2 | 23.9 |
| Self-employed | 7.2 | 2.4 | 9.6 | 12.1 | 7.5 | 13.6 | 4.2 | 5.5 |
| Same pre-immigration employer | 2.9 | 0.0 | 3.0 | 2.4 | 1.1 | 24.6 | 1.6 | – |
| Referred by relative | 24.6 | 40.3 | 26.8 | 14.7 | 8.9 | 3.5 | 26.8 | |
| Related to employer | 3.4 | 4.0 | 1.3 | 8.2 | 4.3 | 2.7 | – | 1.9 |
| Average hours per (usual) week | 41.4 h | 39.8 h | 43.6 h | 40.7 h | 39.9 h | 48.6 h | 42.0 h | 38.4 h |