Working Their Way Up? US Immigrants' Changing Labor Market Assimilation in the Age of Mass Migration

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Collins, William J.; Zimran, Ariell
• 署名单位: Vanderbilt University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20210008
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 238-269
• 关键词: UNITED-STATES; economic assimilation; automated linking; earnings; mobility; outcomes; QUALITY; natives; LESSONS; census

摘要

Whether immigrants advance in labor markets during their life-times relative to natives is a fundamental question in the economics of immigration. We examine linked census records for five cohorts spanning 1850-1940, when immigration to the United States was at its peak. We find a U-shaped pattern of assimilation: immigrants were catching up to natives in the early and later cohorts, but not in between. This change was not due to shifts in immigrants' source countries. Instead, it was rooted in men's early-career occupations, which we associate with structural change, strengthening comple-mentarities, and large immigration waves in the 1840s and 1900s. (JEL J15, J24, J61, J82, N31, N32)