Long-Run Convergence of Ethnic Skill Differentials: The Children and Grandchildren of the Great Migration

Abstract

This paper investigates whether the ethnic skill differentials introduced into the United States by the inflow of very dissimilar immigrant groups during the Great Migration of 1880–1910 have disappeared during the past century. An analysis of the 1910, 1940, and 1980 Censuses and the General Social Surveys reveals that those ethnic differentials have indeed narrowed, but that it might take four generations, or roughly 100 years, for them to disappear. The analysis also indicates that the economic mobility experienced by American-born blacks, especially since World War Two, resembles that of the white ethnic groups that made up the Great Migration.

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

“…Borjas (1994) poses this question using a series of cross sections from the US Census, looking for succeeding generations of the Great Migration of 1880-1910in the Censuses of 1910, 1940and 1980. Dividing these linked generations into ethnic groups based on the country of origin of parents or ancestors, Borjas analyses group mean skill levels and occupational wage rates across generations in a model of the form:…”

“…whether the second generation as a group has caught up with comparable other native born, is not clear. The model estimated by Borjas (1994) can be written as:…”

“…Nothing in the process described by Equations 5 and 6, the process used by Borjas (1994) and Card et al (2000) with quasi-panel data, constrains k À kÀ1 ¼ 0, since factors like age are controlled in separate regressions for each generation. A reasonable assumption is that there will be a 'one time' quality premium to the human capital acquired by the second generation relative to the first generation, as Carliner (1980) argues, because the children of immigrants acquire their language skills, cultural knowledge and schooling in the host country.…”

“…11 We define the second generation as anyone who has an immigrant mother or father, although we distinguish between 'mixed' parentage (an immigrant mother or father but not both) and the 'pure' second generation (an immigrant mother and father) in our subsequent empirical work. Our definition of the second generation corresponds to the one used by Borjas (1994), but with allowance for mixed parentage as in Chiswick (1977). As Table 1 shows, the double cohort in 1999 provides a sample of 1808 second generation and 10,716 other native born men and 2032 second generation and 11,917 other native born women.…”

“…More recent research shifts focus to the transmission of skills and the correlation of labour market outcomes across generations. Using a series of cross-sections to track immigrants and their families over time, researchers find incomplete convergence of skills and wages across ethnic groups within three generations, implying that the earnings disadvantages of immigrants are carried into future generations and that the ethnic composition of immigration has long-lasting labour market effects (Borjas, 1993a(Borjas, , 1994Card et al, 2000).…”