section_path: Causes/Economic incentives
section_name: Economic incentives
paragraph_text: Economic incentives
  
  Economic reasons are one motivation for people to illegally immigrate to the United States. United States employers hire illegal immigrants at wages substantially higher than they could earn in their native countries. A study of illegal immigrants from Mexico in the 1978 harvest season in Oregon showed that they earned six times what they could have earned in Mexico, and even after deducting the costs of the seasonal migration and the additional expense of living in the United States, their net US earnings were three times their Mexican alternative. In the 1960s and early 70s, Mexico's high fertility rate caused a large increase in population. While Mexican population growth has slowed, the large numbers of people born in the 1960s and 70s are now of working age looking for jobs.
  
  According to Judith Gans of the University of Arizona, United States employers are pushed to hire illegal immigrants for three main reasons:
  
  Another reason for the large numbers of illegal immigrants present in the United States is the termination of the Bracero Program. This bi-national program between the US and Mexico existed from 1942 to 1964 to supply qualified Mexican laborers as guest workers to harvest fruits and vegetables in the United States. During World War II, the program benefited the US war effort by replacing citizens' labor in agriculture to serve as soldiers overseas. The program was designed to provide legal flows of qualified laborers to the US Many Mexicans deemed unqualified for the program nonetheless immigrated illegally to the United States to work. In doing that they broke both US and Mexican law. Many workers that took advantage of the program became illegal residents, as they still had incentives to stay in the US despite the fact that they were breaking the law. Although the bracero program had ended, the period still saw a massive spike in migrant population in the US.