| Sumario: | The wage effects of immigration have been widely studied, yet much of the research has focused on competitive threats to low-skilled native-born men. In contrast, this paper applies a gender lens to explore possible complementary relationships between immigration-induced outsourcing of domestic work and the earnings of native-born women, while recognizing the classed and racialized nature of domestic labor. Empirically, this article examines subgroup variations in earnings among full-time employed native-born women by education and race/ethnicity in relation to the state share of immigrants in the domestic service sector. The analysis combines data from the 2012 American Community Survey with state-level work-family policy data collected for 2010, accounting for compositional differences and selection into the labor force. Likely due to increased availability of affordable domestic services, the results show a higher immigrant share is associated with greater earnings for native-born women overall. However, education and race/ethnicity moderate this association, indicating that highly educated non-Hispanic white women benefit more than other women because the labor process and outsourcing of household production are classed and racialized. Hence, states with a higher share of immigrants filling domestic services exhibit wage dispersion patterns that reinforce intersectional inequality among native-born women.
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