The immigrant wage penalty among Mexican Americans declined more for women between 1994 and 2017: Adjusted wage gaps between Mexican Americans and non-Hispanic white men in the U.S., by gender, with and without controls for immigration status, 1994–2017
| Year | Mexican American men | Mexican American men, controlling for immigrant status | Mexican American women | Mexican American women, controlling for immigrant status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | 18.0% | 10.2% | 41.8% | 28.2% |
| 1995 | 20.1% | 13.1% | 40.7% | 31.0% |
| 1996 | 21.6% | 15.4% | 40.5% | 29.3% |
| 1997 | 19.3% | 12.4% | 39.4% | 30.8% |
| 1998 | 19.2% | 12.7% | 40.0% | 30.9% |
| 1999 | 18.4% | 11.8% | 39.2% | 30.7% |
| 2000 | 18.5% | 12.3% | 37.7% | 31.1% |
| 2001 | 19.2% | 13.5% | 31.6% | 28.3% |
| 2002 | 17.7% | 11.4% | 31.7% | 28.8% |
| 2003 | 17.6% | 10.7% | 30.5% | 28.8% |
| 2004 | 18.8% | 12.6% | 32.6% | 28.7% |
| 2005 | 17.3% | 11.1% | 31.1% | 29.3% |
| 2006 | 18.6% | 13.6% | 32.3% | 30.8% |
| 2007 | 18.6% | 13.8% | 32.1% | 29.1% |
| 2008 | 17.6% | 12.3% | 33.7% | 29.1% |
| 2009 | 19.2% | 13.3% | 33.1% | 30.4% |
| 2010 | 18.8% | 12.7% | 32.0% | 29.5% |
| 2011 | 16.9% | 12.1% | 29.8% | 28.4% |
| 2012 | 17.0% | 12.1% | 31.0% | 29.1% |
| 2013 | 15.6% | 11.8% | 30.6% | 30.3% |
| 2014 | 16.3% | 12.3% | 32.6% | 29.7% |
| 2015 | 14.7% | 11.2% | 33.6% | 29.5% |
| 2016 | 12.7% | 9.6% | 32.8% | 30.6% |
| 2017 | 14.8% | 12.0% | 34.2% | 30.9% |
Note: The wage gap is how much less, in percent terms, the average member of each identified subgroup makes than the average non-Hispanic white man. The wages compared are average hourly wages of full-time workers ages 18–64. The dotted “with immigrant status” lines show the wage gap adjusted for education, experience, region of residence, and immigrant status, while the solid lines show the wage gap adjusted only for education, experience, and region of residence. We control for immigrant status by including binary variables indicating whether the respondent is foreign-born or a naturalized citizen (versus a U.S.-born citizen) and whether the person had lived in the U.S. for less than five years at the time of the survey.
Source: EPI analysis of Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Group microdata from the U.S. Census Bureau