Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/319100 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 17831
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Fueling debates about the "quality" of immigrants from economically developing countries, empirical studies based on a well-respected methodology conclude that post-1965 immigrant men have low initial earnings and sluggish earnings growth. This methodology is based on flawed assumptions (Duleep, Liu, and Regets, 2022). Removing these assumptions reveals high earnings growth for post-1965 immigrant men in accordance with the Immigrant Human Capital Investment Model (Duleep and Regets, 1999). A similar story emerges for immigrant women, contradicting the Family Investment Hypothesis first put forth by Long (1980) and Duleep and Sanders (1993). It appears a pre-1965/post-1965 transition occurred in the earnings profiles of U.S. immigrants, from earnings resembling those of U.S. natives to low initial earnings but much higher earnings growth than their U.S.-born statistical twins. The transition underlies the overtime success story of immigrant families from economically developing countries (Duleep, Regets, Sanders, and Wunnava, 2021); the high earnings growth reflects human capital investment that invigorates the economy (Duleep, Jaeger, and McHenry, 2018; Green, 1999, Green and Worswick, 2012).
Subjects: 
nonparametric estimation
immigrant earning growth
family investment hypothesis
immigrant quality
sample restrictions
skill transferability
human capital investment
JEL: 
J15
J16
J24
J31
C1
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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