← Search

American Economic Review Vol. 101 No. 3 2011

Tracking Intergenerational Progress for Immigrant Groups: The Problem of Ethnic Attrition

Brian Duncan1; Stephen J. Trejo2

1 Department of Economics, University of Colorado Denver, Campus Box 181, Denver, CO 80217-3364. · 2 Department of Economics, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station C3100, Austin, TX 78712-0301.

Abstract

In tracking the later-generation descendants of immigrants, measurement biases can arise from “ethnic attrition” (e.g., US-born individuals who do not self-identify as Mexican despite having ancestors who immigrated from Mexico). We present evidence that such ethnic attrition is sizeable and selective for the third-generation populations of key Hispanic and Asian immigrant groups. In addition, our results suggest that ethnic attrition generates biases that vary across national origin groups in direction as well as magnitude, and that correcting for these biases will raise the socioeconomic standing of the US-born descendants of most Hispanic immigrants relative to their Asian counterparts.

DOI
10.1257/aer.101.3.603
Volume
101
Issue
3
Pages
603-608
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Cite