The skill development of children of immigrants

Marie Hull and Jonathan Norris ()
Additional contact information
Jonathan Norris: Department of Economics, University of Strathclyde

No 2005, Working Papers from University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics

Abstract: In this paper, we study the evolution of cognitive and noncognitive skills gaps for children of immigrants between kindergarten and 5th grade using two cohorts of elementary school students. We find some evidence that children of immigrants begin school with lower math scores than children of natives, but this gap disappears in later elementary school. For noncognitive skills, children of immigrants and children of natives score similarly in early elementary school, but a positive gap opens up in 2nd grade. We find that the growth in noncognitive skills is driven by disadvantaged immigrant students. We discuss potential explanations for the observed patterns of skill development as well as the implications of our results for the labor market prospects of children of immigrants.

Keywords: children of immigrants; test scores; noncognitive skills; early life development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 J13 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 63 pages
Date: 2020-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-lab, nep-neu and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The skill development of children of immigrants (2020)
Working Paper: The Skill Development of Children of Immigrants (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:str:wpaper:2005

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