Wage distributions in origin societies and occupational choices of immigrant generations in the USA

Crystal Zhan ()
Additional contact information
Crystal Zhan: University of South Carolina

Journal of Population Economics, 2022, vol. 35, issue 1, No 3, 89-133

Abstract: Abstract This paper studies occupational selection among generations of immigrants in the USA and links their choices to the occupational wage distribution in their country of origin. The empirical results suggest that individuals are more likely to take up an occupation in the USA that was more lucrative in the origin country, conditional on individual demographic characteristics, parental human capital, and ethnic networks. However, the importance of the origin wage declines with the length of time that immigrants spend in the USA and over generations. Information frictions may be an explanation.

Keywords: Immigrants; Occupational choices; Origin wage; Intergenerational transmission; Assimilation; Human capital; Information (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 J24 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00148-020-00811-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jopoec:v:35:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s00148-020-00811-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... tion/journal/148/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s00148-020-00811-4

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Population Economics is currently edited by K.F. Zimmermann

More articles in Journal of Population Economics from Springer, European Society for Population Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().