Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/169282 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Citation: 
[Journal:] IZA Journal of Migration [ISSN:] 2193-9039 [Volume:] 5 [Issue:] 17 [Publisher:] Springer [Place:] Heidelberg [Year:] 2016 [Pages:] 1-32
Publisher: 
Springer, Heidelberg
Abstract: 
At the height of the US civil rights movement in the mid-1960s, foreign-born persons were less than 1 % of the African-American population (Kent, Popul Bull, 62:4, 2007). Today, 16 % of America's African diaspora workforce consists of first- or second-generation immigrants and 4 % is Hispanic. Intergenerational improvement is an important source of wage convergence of black immigrants. Unskilled immigrants who arrive in the USA as children and adolescents experience substantial wage assimilation, especially Caribbean-English and African-English immigrants. But both unskilled immigrants arriving as adults and all skilled immigrants fail to catch up to the wage status of either native-born whites or native-born African-Americans. After living in the USA for 9-15 years, first-generation black immigrants will have wage penalties at least as large as native-born African-Americans. The immigration process selects black immigrants who have or who would have achieved middle income or higher status in their country of origin. As such, black immigrants tend to have above average observable characteristics. Nevertheless, black immigrants do not obtain wage assimilation equal to native-born non-Hispanic white male workers.
Subjects: 
Black immigrants
Assimilation
Discrimination
Immigration
Caribbean
African
Hispanic
Race
JEL: 
J15
J31
J61
J62 , J7
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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