Abstract

Two radically different descriptions of immigrant earnings trajectories in the USA have emerged. One asserts that immigrant men, following the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, have low initial earnings and high earnings growth. Another asserts that the post-1965 immigrants have low initial earnings and low earnings growth. We describe the methodological issues that create this divide and show that low earnings growth becomes high earnings growth when immigrants are followed from their initial years in the USA; earnings growth is allowed to vary with entry earnings; and—when following cohorts instead of individuals—sample restrictions commonly used by labor economists are avoided.

Details

Title
How the earnings growth of US immigrants was underestimated
Author
Duleep Harriet 1 ; Liu Xingfei 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Regets, Mark 3 

1  College of William & Mary, Public Policy Program, GLO, IZA, Williamsburg, USA (GRID:grid.264889.9) (ISNI:0000 0001 1940 3051) 
2  University of Alberta, Department of Economics, GLO, IZA, Edmonton, Canada (GRID:grid.17089.37) (ISNI:0000 0001 2190 316X) 
3  National Foundation for American Policy, GLO, IZA, Arlington, USA (GRID:grid.448378.4) (ISNI:0000 0001 0557 9451) 
Pages
381-407
Publication year
2022
Publication date
Apr 2022
Publisher
Springer Nature B.V.
ISSN
09331433
e-ISSN
14321475
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-021-00861-2
ProQuest document ID
2619612139
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2021. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.