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Elaine Levine Leiter, Ph.D.

Professor Levine is a full-time, category “C” researcher in the CISAN Area of Integration Studies. She did her undergraduate and master’s work in economics in the United States and received her doctorate in economics from the National Autonomous University of Mexico School of Economics. She is a professor and thesis advisor at the UNAM Graduate Program in Political and Social Sciences, as well as a thesis advisor in the Economics Graduate Program. A member of the National System of Researchers, she is a specialist in the U.S. economy and her main areas of research are the U.S. labor market, income distribution, and the socio-economic status of Latinos there. She has headed and co-headed several collective research projects. Currently, her individual research project is “Latino Labor in the United States and Its Economic and Social Implications.” As part of this project, she has paid special attention recently to anti-immigrant attitudes and policies in several states, particularly in the Southeast, and the difficulties posed for achieving federal immigration reform.

She is the author of the book Los nuevos pobres de Estados Unidos: los hispanos (The New Poor in the United States: Hispanics) (Mexico City: Miguel Ángel Porrúa/Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas-UNAM/CISAN-UNAM, 2001). She is the editor and co-author of the book La migración y los latinos en Estados Unidos: visiones y conexiones (Migration and Latinos in the United States: Visions and Connections) (Mexico City: CISAN-UNAM, 2008) and the on-line version of the same book (CISAN-UNAM, 2014). She is the co-editor and co-author of the book Impacts of the Recent Economic Crisis (2008-2009) on International Migration (Mexico City: CISAN-UNAM and Metropolis International, 2014). She has written many chapters in collective books as well as articles for academic journals. Her most recent articles can be found in the reviews Norteamérica (2013), Carta Económica Regional (2014), and Problemas del Desarrollo (2015). She is the author of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in Contemporary Politics, Law and Social Movements (2015) entry“Labor Market, Latinos and Latinas.”

Professor Levine has been a visiting researcher at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and at Kennesaw State University in the state of Georgia, and a visiting professor at Spain’s University of Salamanca. Individual project: “Latino Labor in the United States and Its Economic and Social Implications.”

The main objective of this research project is to analyze the labor conditions of Mexicans and other Latino groups in the United States to pinpoint and explain the differences among them with regard to jobs, wages, and working conditions, as well as those that arise in different regions and states of the United States due to the prevailing occupations, seniority, and origins of Latino communities. Professor Levine also aims to examine the repercussions that these working conditions have on the social and economic position of recent Latino immigrants to the United States, as well as the prospects for their children to move up the socio-economic ladder there. One central issue to be examined are the effects of the 2008-2009 crisis and the political climate it spawned, particularly in some southeastern states and other areas where strong anti-immigrant sentiments have flowered. The political debate around immigration laws and immigrants that has arisen in the period running up to the 2016 federal elections is also a very important part of the current context and will have very important repercussions on the circumstances of immigrants in the United States in the coming years.

Main lines of research:

    ● migración y condiiones de vida y trabajo de los migrantes mexicanos en Estdos Unidos




elaine@unam.mx

56-23-03-00 al 56-23-03-09