The earnings of foreign-born adult white men, as reported in the 1970 Census of Population, are analyzed through comparisons with the native born and among the foreign born by country of origin, years in the United States, and citizenship. Differences in the effects of schooling and postschool training are explored. Although immigrants initially earn less than the native born, their earnings rise more rapidly with U.S. labor market experience, and after 10 to 15 years their earnings equal, and then exceed, that of the native born. Earnings are unrelated to whether the foreign born are U.S. citizens.
This paper analyzes trends in the skills of immigrants to the United States in the post-World War II period. Changes in the supply, demand, and institutional factors determining immigration are analyzed for their implications for immigrant skills. The empirical analysis uses INS administrative data, the 1970 and 1980 censuses, and the 1976 Survey of Income and Education. Relatively more immigrants are now coming from countries whose nationals earn less in the United States. The schooling level of immigrants has been fairly stable; the declining level for the growing Hispanic immigration is offset by the high level of the increasing Asian immigration. Immigrant quality, ceteris paribus, is analyzed. Policy implications are discussed.
Viewing the United States as comprising many racial and ethnic groups, it is shown that group differences in earnings, schooling, and rates of return from schooling are striking and that the groups with higher levels of schooling also have higher rates of return. These data are shown to be consistent with a child quality investment model, but they are not consistent with the hypotheses that the primary determinants of schooling level are discrimination, minority group status, differences in time preference (discount rates), or "tastes" for schooling. Group differences in fertility and female labor supply are examined as partial determinants of investment in child quality. Policy implications are discussed.
Implications of the quantity (number) and quality (skill) of immigration on the destination economy are analyzed, including impacts on value added, wages, quasi rents, rates of return, and the skill distribution of the native labor force. Quantity-quality trade-offs are considered for both immigrant and native workers. Medium- and long-run labor-supply responses by natives to immigrant-induced changes in wage rates are shown to have second-order effects which substantively affect the impacts of immigrants. The impact of immigration policy depends on the quality as well as quantity of immigrants, the time horizon, and the speed of factor market adjustment.
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This paper develops a two-country model of international migration in an attempt to study the role of both qualitative and quantitative restrictions on international labor mobility. Individuals are distinguished in terms of their ability and age, enabling the model to examine factors which influence the age and skill profile of those who migrate, as well as the equilibrium flow of migrants and the pattern of factor rewards in the two economies. Effects of changes in certain parameters of the model are related to the nature of the immigration policy enforced by the host country. The role of emigration restrictions is also considered.
In this paper I discuss the economic (and other) determinants of the adverse effect of distance on migration, which is demonstrated by the negative distance elasticity of migration flows. These determinants are sorted and classified into two groups: (1) increasing (with distance) psychic cost and (2) diminishing (with distance) information. I further discuss how aging and education respectively influence the relative importance of these two groups. Using data on flows of migrants cross-classified by age and by education, I estimate the effect of age and education on the distance elasticity of migration. The statistical hypothesis that aging does not affect the distance elasticity whereas increasing education strongly diminishes the absolute value of the distance elasticity is accepted. The acceptance of this hypothesis, coupled with my theoretical consideration, implies that the adverse effect of distance on migration is basically a diminishing-information phenomena.
The shape of the earnings-age function and the way education affects it can explain all the empirically observed relations of migration measures to distance moved, age, and education. No other assumptions (which are often made)--such as attributing lower risk aversion and higher efficiency of job search to more-educated persons, or higher psychic cost of moving to older persons--are needed. The individual's search for jobs and the firm's search for employees are affected by the shape of the earnings function--and, thus, by age and education in a predictable way. In turn, the observed systematic behavior of the migration measures with respect to age and education is responsive to the search behavior.
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