El Sueno Americano? The Generational Progress of Mexican Americans Prior to World War II

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: University System of Ohio; Xavier University; Baylor University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050720000480
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 961-995
• 关键词: Intergenerational income mobility; UNITED-STATES; economic outcomes; immigrants; assimilation; AGE; 2nd-generation; neighborhoods; preferences; population

摘要

We present new estimates of the outcomes of first-generation Mexicans and their descendants between 1880 and 1940. We find zero convergence of the economic gap between Mexicans and non-Mexican whites across three generations. The great-grandchildren of immigrants also had fewer years of education. Slow convergence is not simply due to an inheritance of poverty; rather, Mexican Americans had worse outcomes conditional on the father's economic status. However, the gap between third-generation Mexican Americans and non-Mexican whites is about half the size today as it was in 1940, suggesting that barriers to Mexican American progress have significantly decreased over time.