Immigration Regimes and Labor Market Integration: The Case of South American Immigrants to Chile

What explains immigrants’ integration into host-country labor markets? Bridging group-level and structural accounts of labor market inequality, this study investigates the role of immigration regimes, or the assemblage of laws, administrative rules, and enforcement practices that structure cross-border movement, assign legal categories, and mediate access to rights and resources. We examine whether and how newly restrictive immigration regimes can erode immigrants’ prior labor market integration vis-à-vis the native born. Using a sequential mixed-methods design, we analyze the case of South American immigrants to Chile, which in 2021 passed new immigration restrictions following rapid demographic change. Analyses of nationally-representative surveys show that immigrant groups who matched or exceeded Chileans on several labor market outcomes in 2017 experienced significant declines by 2022. We refer to this as labor market disintegration. These declines are not explained by migrant selectivity, social networks, civil society support, or duration of residence. Sixty-nine in-depth interviews with South American immigrants reveal two mechanisms that link immigration regimes to labor market disintegration: recategorization, whereby immigrants are shifted into legal statuses that reduce access to work authorization and citizenship, and hypersegmentation, whereby even well-credentialed immigrants are confined to low-wage jobs with little mobility. We conclude with implications for immigrant integration under restrictive regimes emerging worldwide.

Mayra Feddersen is an Associate Professor at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez. In 2017, she earned her Ph.D. from the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program (JSP) at UC Berkeley School of Law. In 2011, she received her Master at the same institution. Her research focuses on immigration policy, immigrant labor integration, and social legal studies on formal institutions. Mayra serves as one of the principal researchers within the MIGRA Millennium nucleus, deputy director of CIDS, and president of the CPM directory.