The legacy of immigration: labour market performance and education in the second generation

Derek Hum and Wayne Simpson

Applied Economics, 2007, vol. 39, issue 15, 1985-2009

Abstract: Previous research finds that the children of immigrants, or the second generation, earn at least as much as other native born but that there are persistent ethnic differences in the intergenerational transmission of education and wages. We explain why these results are not incompatible and extend the empirical evidence in several directions using the Canadian Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics. First, we estimate a model of wages, earnings and hours worked using modern econometric techniques to corroborate earlier US results of complete integration by the second generation in the labour market. We find that ethnic differences in labour market performance are significant, but that these difference do not alter conclusions about the relative performance of the second generation. Second, we find a source of superior labour market performance for the second generation in higher educational attainment, which constitutes an important legacy of immigration that should not be ignored. Third, we find that the definition of the second generation matters. Men and women with two immigrant parents achieve about one additional year of education, while those with one immigrant parent achieve about one-half that educational advantage. We conclude that the education effect of an immigrant mother or father are comparable.

Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00036840600690223 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:applec:v:39:y:2007:i:15:p:1985-2009

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RAEC20

DOI: 10.1080/00036840600690223

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics is currently edited by Anita Phillips

More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().