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Contributions of Immigrant Farmworkers to California Vegetable Production

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2015

Stephen Devadoss  and
Jeff Luckstead
Stephen Devadoss
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Idaho
Jeff Luckstead
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Idaho
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Abstract

A major concern with immigrants coming into the United States is that they adversely affect domestic workers through job competition and wage depression. We study the displacement and wage reduction effects of immigrants in California vegetable production, which is labor intensive, and 95% of the farmworkers in California are immigrants. Our findings show that this concern is not valid in vegetable production because the addition of one new immigrant displaces only 0.0123 domestic workers, and wage reduction is inconsequential. But one immigrant worker increases the vegetable production by $23,457 and augments the productivity of skilled workers, material inputs, and capital by $11,729.

Keywords

employment displacementimmigrant laborvegetable productionwage effectJ43J61
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , December 2008 , pp. 879 - 894
Copyright
Copyright © Southern Agricultural Economics Association 2008

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