Age at arrival, parents and neighborhoods: understanding the educational attainment of immigrants’ children

The economic situation of first and second-generation immigrants in France, Germany and the United Kingdom

Laura Ansala, Ulla Hämäläinen and Matti Sarvimäki ()

Journal of Economic Geography, 2020, vol. 20, issue 2, 459-480

Abstract: This article documents how children of immigrants cope in early adulthood in Finland. We first show that, on average, they have dramatically lower educational attainment than children of natives do. This difference can be attributed to age at arrival, parental income and neighborhood quality. In fact, Finnish-born children of immigrants obtain more education than children of natives growing up in the same zip codes and in families with similar parental income and family structure. Sibling comparisons suggest that age at arrival has a causal impact on educational attainment. The results are very similar for the likelihood of being idle and having been convicted of a crime, but are starkly different for the likelihood of having been reimbursed for psychotropic medication.

Keywords: Children of immigrants; second-generation immigrants; education; age at arrival (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I14 I21 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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