The immigrant assimilation puzzle in late nineteenth-century America

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hatton, TJ
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050700017915
• 发表日期: 1997
• 页码: 34-62
• 关键词: cohort quality; earnings; 19th-century

摘要

Recent studies suggest that the earnings of pre-1890 immigrants grew slowly compared with those of natives and imply that these immigrants did not assimilate well into the American labor market. Using data for Michigan and California this article estimates new specifications for immigrant and native-born earnings, and finds that immigrants who arrived as children had similar earnings profiles to the native-born. Immigrants who arrived as adults suffered an initial earnings disadvantage but their earnings grew faster than those of the native-born. These results ate consistent with the traditional view that pre-1890 immigrants assimilated well.