The Not-So-Hot Melting Pot: The Persistence of Outcomes for Descendants of the Age of Mass Migration

Abstract

How persistent are economic gaps across ethnicities? The convergence of ethnic gaps through the third generation of immigrants is difficult to measure because few datasets include grandparental birthplace. I overcome this limitation with a new three-generational dataset that links immigrant grandfathers in 1880 to their grandsons in 1940. I find that the persistence of ethnic gaps in occupational income is 2.5 times stronger than predicted by a standard grandfather-grandson elasticity. While part of the discrepancy is due to measurement error attenuating the grandfather-grandson elasticity, mechanisms related to geography also partially explain the stronger persistence of ethnic occupational differentials. (JEL J15, J22, J31, J51)

El Sueño Americano? The Generational Progress of Mexican Americans Prior to World War II

“…29 The one exception for European sources is Norway, but the Norway gap (4 percentiles) was much smaller than the Mexico gap (23 percentiles when estimated in a similar way). Relatedly, Ward (2020b) estimates that about half of the occupational income gaps across source countries persisted from the first generation in 1880 to the third generation in 1940; however, we find zero convergence for Mexican Americans. Therefore, Mexico appears to be a unique source in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which experienced limited gains relative to Europeans and U.S.-born whites.…”

“…Having a Spanish-sounding surname explains five log points, which may reflect labor market discrimination but also likely proxies for other unobservable characteristics. The full range of fixed effects for childhood enumeration district explains only five log points, less than parental characteristics, which is surprising given the evidence that childhood location matters for ethnic gaps (Abramitzky et al 2019; Alexander and Ward 2018; Ward 2020b). It may be that other barriers to progress were strong enough that improvements to the childhood environment had a limited impact on upward mobility.…”

“…Lumping these generations together may bias the assimilation profile (Duncan et al 2020). Ward (2020b) also observes a set of third-generation Mexican Americans, but only a small sample of 189 that were linked from grandfather in 1880 to grandson in 1940. Our paper differs by focusing on a single-linked sample between 1910 and 1940 to observe a higher number of third-generation outcomes (5,088).…”

Class Background, Reception Context, and Intergenerational Mobility: A Record Linkage and Surname Analysis of the Children of Irish Immigrants

“…The belief that this diverse population of Europeans “made it in America” has shaped how we understand immigrant assimilation today, particularly in the United States (Perlmann and Waldinger 1997). While it is often claimed that immigrants overcame low-skilled backgrounds to reach parity with natives within two generations (Gordon 1964; Hatton 1997; Chiswick 1999), other evidence suggests that low-skilled backgrounds can hamper economic and schooling attainment for four generations or more (Borjas 1994; Ward 2017). Almost all prior findings, however, rely on national origin, group-level comparisons of earnings in the United States, and average educational or occupational levels in the source country (e.g., Borjas 1994).…”

The Effects of Immigration on the Economy: Lessons from the 1920s Border Closure

“…5 Together, this work adds to the broader literature about the economics of the Age of Mass Migration from Europe reviewed by Abramitzky and Boustan (2017). This work has spanned many topics, including migrant selection and assimilation (Ferrie, 1999;Abramitzky, Boustan and Eriksson, 2012Spitzer and Zimran, 2018;Alexander and Ward, 2018;Ward, Forthcoming;; return migration to Europe (Bandiera, et al, 2013;Ward, 2017;Abramitzky, Boustan and Eriksson, 2019); and the long-run effects of immigrant settlement on local areas Brueckner, 2013, 2018;Burchardi, et al 2016;Sequeira, et al, Forthcoming).…”