A widely held proposition is that attitudes of Americans toward immigrants are closely linked to trends in the unemployment rate (Espenshade and Hempstead 1996, Barkan 2003, Hopkins 2010, Rustenbach 2010). This proposition is usually tested using annual national cross-sectional opinion data on the attitude of natives toward wanting to decrease immigration (anti-immigration attitude) and annual national unemployment rates. However, the urban case study regional literature shows that immigrant receptivity attitudes differ markedly across local labor markets and regional contexts in the U.S. (De Jong and Steinmetz 2004, Laglagaron, Rodriguez, Silver and Thanasombat 2008), with some cities adopting active initiatives to attract and integrate immigrant populations (Gambetta and Gedrimaite 2010, Welcome Dayton Report 2011).

This paper advances the literature on immigrant receptivity and unemployment in several ways. First, rather than relying on national cross-sectional opinion data taken from a single survey question on immigration quotas, we collect data to measure immigrant receptivity for all U.S. labor market areas based on content analyses of a random sample of all articles on immigrants/immigration published by local media between 1995-2010. Based on this methodology we summarize multiple indicators of positive vs. negative immigrant receptivity attitudes and behaviors by community members. Second, we test the employment and immigrant receptivity proposition in the context of an established-to-emerging typology of urban areas with unique 1980-2010 patterns of Hispanic immigrant population size and growth rates.

Two important justifications for documenting the relationship between unemployment rates and immigrant receptivity attitudes of natives at the local labor market area level are:

1. Immigrant receptivity attitudes of natives is a major but seldom explored factor in explaining assimilation of immigrants into local communities. The dominant immigrant assimilation theoretical framings emphasize immigrant human and social capital and local labor market economic structures.
2. Immigrant receptivity attitudes of natives are fundamental to the urban economic development strategies of an increasing number of local labor market areas in the U.S. (Gambetta and Gedrimaite 2010). Arguably trends in Hispanic immigration, as the largest contributor to immigration to U.S. labor markets compared to Asian, African or European immigration, are the most salient for understanding the relationship between unemployment rates and immigrant receptivity attitudes, and we accordingly focus on variation in immigrant receptivity across labor market destination types for Hispanic immigrants between 1980-2010.

Research Questions

1. Do U.S. labor markets differ in their attitude and community behavior receptivity climate of natives toward immigrants over the 1995-2010 period?
2. Are high vs. low unemployment rates associated with a hostile or a welcoming receptivity climate toward immigrants across all U.S. labor markets? Does this relationship change between 1995-2010?
3. Does the relationship between unemployment rates and immigrant receptivity attitudes of natives differ in established versus emerging Hispanic immigrant  destination labor market areas?

Analysis uses labor market-specific annual unemployment rates and annual immigrant receptivity climate summary measures for 1995-2010 to test lagged regression models for all U.S. labor markets and five established-to-emerging Hispanic immigrant destination labor market types.