The low return to English fluency during the Age of Mass Migration☆

Abstract

English skills are highly valuable for today’s immigrants, but has this always been the case? I estimate the premium for English fluency and the rate of language acquisition in the early 20th century US using new linked data on over two hundred thousand immigrants. Few early 20th century immigrants arrived with English proficiency, yet many acquired language skills rapidly after arrival. Based on individual fixed effects, acquiring English fluency was associated with a small upgrade in occupational income. The results suggest that English fluency was less important for economic assimilation in the early 20th century than in recent decades.

The Ethnic Segregation of Immigrants in the United States from 1850 to 1940

“…Based on the comparison of the panel and cross sectional data, return migrants came from more highly segregated neighborhoods since the cross section estimates a larger gap at arrival than the panel (58.4 percentage points versus 50.1 percentage points). Negative selection into return migration on the native-born composition of the neighborhood is consistent with evidence that return migrants were negatively selected on occupational status, English fluency and skill (Abramitzky et al, 2014;Ward, 2017;Ward, 2018). According to Panel B, the magnitude of negative selection into return migration was roughly constant across the 1900 to 1919 cohorts since the gap between the repeated crosssectional estimates and panel estimates is also roughly constant.…”

“…After a decade of duration in the United States, this gap between the native-and foreign-born closed slightly from 50 to 41 percentage points, reflecting that immigrants did spatially assimilate, but at a slow rate. A slow rate of spatial assimilation is consistent with a lack of convergence in occupational distributions for many source countries between 1900 and 1920 (Abramitzky, Boustan and Eriksson, 2014); yet it contrasts with the quick rate of social assimilation after arrival in terms of English acquisition, immigrants adopting Anglicized names and immigrants naming their children with Anglicized names (Abramitzky, Boustan and Eriksson, 2016;Biavaschi et al, 2017;Ward, 2018). Therefore, despite the social assimilation of immigrants, immigrants' average lived experience was quite distinct from that of the native born.…”

“…1920, and 113,799 linked from 1920-1930. The data was created based on machine-learning techniques from James Feigenbaum (2016) and was first presented in detail in Ward (2018).…”

“…assimilating quickly in terms of English proficiency, intermarriage and Anglicization of names (Abramitzky et al, 2014;Abramitzky et al, 2016;Biavaschi, 2017;Ward, 2018).…”

Revisiting Mexican migration in the Age of Mass Migration: New evidence from individual border crossings

“…Abramitzky et al (2019a) andAbramitzky et al (2019b) can be implemented to link immigrants recorded in the MBCRs with other historical sources. This could allow the development of research similar toAbramitzky et al (2014);Inwood et al (2019) andWard (2019), who study the assimilation and performance of immigrants during the early twentieth century. Since the MBCRs record return migration, it is also possible to examine the selection pattern into migration and into return migration likeAbramitzky et al (2019c);Kosack & Ward (2014).Annex.…”