Chinese Immigrants in the U.S. Labor Market:Effects of Post-Tiananmen Immigration Policy

The Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and ensuing government crackdown affectedChinese nationals not only at home but around the world. The U.S. government responded tothe events in China by enacting multiple measures to protect Chinese nationals present inthe U.S. It first suspended all forced departures among Chinese nationals present in thecountry as of June 1989 and later gave them authorization to work legally. The ChineseStudent Protection Act, passed in October 1992, made those Chinese nationals eligible forlawful permanent resident status. These actions applied to about 80,000 Chinese nationalsresiding in the U.S. on student or other temporary visas or illegally. Receiving permission towork legally and then a green card is likely to have affected recipients’ labor marketoutcomes. This study uses 1990 and 2000 census data to examine employment andearnings among Chinese immigrants who were likely beneficiaries of the U.S. government’sactions. Relative to immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea – countries notcovered by the post-Tiananmen immigration policy measures – highly-educated immigrantsfrom mainland China experienced significant employment and earnings gains during the1990s. Chinese immigrants who arrived in the U.S in time to benefit from the measures alsohad higher relative earnings in 2000 than Chinese immigrants who arrived too late to benefit.The results suggest that getting legal work status and then a green card has a significantpositive effect on skilled migrants’ labor market outcomes....