Study: DACA increased immigrants’ education, labor force participation, and productivity

Professor Na'ama Shenhav (with Elira Kuka and Kevin Shih)'s working paper “Do Human Capital Decisions Respond to the Returns to Education? Evidence from DACA,” was released in February by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The paper studies the human capital responses of undocumented youth to a salient shock in the returns to schooling provided by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA). Tracking the outcomes of undocumented youth before and after DACA, the authors provide compelling evidence that an important share of the gap in the high school graduation, college attendance and teenage pregnancy of undocumented students and their peers is attributable to the uncertain and limited returns to schooling. The study found that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program under fire by the Trump Administration has significantly changed the lives of young people who came to the United States illegally as children.

This paper has been featured in several media outlets, including Vox, the Atlantic, Inside Higher Ed, Chalkbeat, MarketWatch and ProMarket.