IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecoedu/v78y2020ics0272775720305227.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The skill development of children of immigrants

Author

Listed:
  • Hull, Marie
  • Norris, Jonathan

Abstract

In this paper, we study the evolution of cognitive and noncognitive skills gaps for children of immigrants between kindergarten and 5th grade using two cohorts of elementary school students. We find some evidence that children of immigrants begin school with lower math scores than children of natives, but this gap disappears in later elementary school. For noncognitive skills, children of immigrants and children of natives score similarly in early elementary school, but a positive gap opens up in 2nd grade. We find that the growth in noncognitive skills is driven by disadvantaged immigrant students. We discuss potential explanations for the observed patterns of skill development as well as the implications of our results for the labor market prospects of children of immigrants.

Suggested Citation

  • Hull, Marie & Norris, Jonathan, 2020. "The skill development of children of immigrants," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:78:y:2020:i:c:s0272775720305227
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2020.102036
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775720305227
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econedurev.2020.102036?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marianne Bertrand & Jessica Pan, 2013. "The Trouble with Boys: Social Influences and the Gender Gap in Disruptive Behavior," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 32-64, January.
    2. Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1976. "Child Endowments and the Quantity and Quality of Children," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(4), pages 143-162, August.
    3. Gonzalez, Arturo, 2003. "The education and wages of immigrant children: the impact of age at arrival," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 203-212, April.
    4. David Card, 2005. "Is the New Immigration Really so Bad?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(507), pages 300-323, November.
    5. Christopher Cornwell & David B. Mustard & Jessica Van Parys, 2013. "Noncognitive Skills and the Gender Disparities in Test Scores and Teacher Assessments: Evidence from Primary School," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 48(1), pages 236-264.
    6. Amy Ellen Schwartz & Leanna Stiefel, 2006. "Is There a Nativity Gap? New Evidence on the Academic Performance of Immigrant Students," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 1(1), pages 17-49, January.
    7. Per-Anders Edin & Peter Fredriksson & Martin Nybom & Björn Öckert, 2022. "The Rising Return to Noncognitive Skill," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 78-100, April.
    8. Flavio Cunha & James J. Heckman & Susanne M. Schennach, 2010. "Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(3), pages 883-931, May.
    9. James J. Heckman & Jora Stixrud & Sergio Urzua, 2006. "The Effects of Cognitive and Noncognitive Abilities on Labor Market Outcomes and Social Behavior," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(3), pages 411-482, July.
    10. Timothy N. Bond & Kevin Lang, 2013. "The Evolution of the Black-White Test Score Gap in Grades K–3: The Fragility of Results," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1468-1479, December.
    11. Richard Akresh & Redstone Akresh, 2011. "Using Achievement Tests to Measure Language Assimilation and Language Bias among the Children of Immigrants," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(3), pages 647-667.
    12. David J. Deming, 2017. "The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(4), pages 1593-1640.
    13. Jennifer Glick & Michael White, 2003. "academic trajectories of immigrant youths: Analysis within and across cohorts," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 40(4), pages 759-783, November.
    14. Joseph Price, 2008. "Parent-Child Quality Time: Does Birth Order Matter?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(1).
    15. Hull, Marie C., 2017. "The academic progress of Hispanic immigrants," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 91-110.
    16. Charles T. Clotfelter & Helen F. Ladd & Jacob L. Vigdor, 2006. "Teacher-Student Matching and the Assessment of Teacher Effectiveness," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 41(4).
    17. Kalb, Guyonne & van Ours, Jan C., 2014. "Reading to young children: A head-start in life?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 1-24.
    18. Roland G. Fryer & Steven D. Levitt, 2006. "The Black-White Test Score Gap Through Third Grade," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 8(2), pages 249-281.
    19. Ildefonso Mendez & Gema Zamarro, 2018. "The intergenerational transmission of noncognitive skills and their effect on education and employment outcomes," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(2), pages 521-560, April.
    20. Scott E. Carrell & Mark L. Hoekstra, 2010. "Externalities in the Classroom: How Children Exposed to Domestic Violence Affect Everyone's Kids," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 211-228, January.
    21. Charles T. Clotfelter & Helen F. Ladd & Jacob L. Vigdor, 2010. "Teacher Credentials and Student Achievement in High School: A Cross-Subject Analysis with Student Fixed Effects," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(3).
    22. Clotfelter, Charles T. & Ladd, Helen F. & Vigdor, Jacob L., 2007. "Teacher credentials and student achievement: Longitudinal analysis with student fixed effects," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 673-682, December.
    23. Roland G. Fryer & Steven D. Levitt, 2004. "Understanding the Black-White Test Score Gap in the First Two Years of School," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(2), pages 447-464, May.
    24. Jonathan Norris & Martijn van Hasselt, 2019. "Troubled in school: does maternal involvement matter for adolescents?," Working Papers 1906, University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics.
    25. Burgess, Simon & Heller-Sahlgren, Gabriel, 2018. "Motivated to Succeed? Attitudes to Education among Native and Immigrant Pupils in England," IZA Discussion Papers 11678, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    26. Charles T. Clotfelter & Helen F. Ladd & Jacob L. Vigdor, 2009. "The Academic Achievement Gap in Grades 3 to 8," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(2), pages 398-419, May.
    27. David Figlio & Paola Giuliano & Umut Özek & Paola Sapienza, 2019. "Long-Term Orientation and Educational Performance," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 272-309, November.
    28. Flavio Cunha & James J. Heckman, 2008. "Formulating, Identifying and Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(4).
    29. Fenoll, Ainhoa Aparicio, 2018. "English proficiency and mathematics test scores of immigrant children in the US," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 102-113.
    30. Stiefel, Leanna & Schwartz, Amy Ellen & Conger, Dylan, 2010. "Age of entry and the high school performance of immigrant youth," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 303-314, May.
    31. Chiswick, Barry R. & DebBurman, Noyna, 2004. "Educational attainment: analysis by immigrant generation," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 361-379, August.
    32. Jeffrey Penney, 2017. "Test Score Measurement and the Black-White Test Score Gap," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(4), pages 652-656, July.
    33. Renee Luthra & Thomas Soehl, 2015. "From Parent to Child? Transmission of Educational Attainment Within Immigrant Families: Methodological Considerations," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(2), pages 543-567, April.
    34. Wiswall, Matthew, 2013. "The dynamics of teacher quality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 61-78.
    35. Hoyt Bleakley & Aimee Chin, 2008. "What Holds Back the Second Generation?: The Intergenerational Transmission of Language Human Capital Among Immigrants," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(2), pages 267-298.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Babar Nawaz Abbasi & Zhimin Luo & Ali Sohail, 2023. "Effect of parental migration on the noncognitive abilities of left-behind school-going children in rural China," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14, December.
    2. Marie C. Hull, 2023. "What divides the first and second generations? Family time of arrival and educational outcomes for immigrant youth," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 754-787, January.
    3. Cobb-Clark Deborah A. & Harmon Colm & Staneva Anita, 2021. "The bilingual gap in children's language, emotional, and pro-social development," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 10(1), pages 1-41, January.
    4. Nejad, Maryam Naghsh & Schurer, Stefanie, 2022. "Cognitive and non-cognitive abilities of immigrants: New perspectives on migrant quality from a selective immigration country," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 107-124.
    5. Nguyen, Ha Trong & Connelly, Luke & Le, Huong Thu & Mitrou, Francis & Taylor, Catherine L. & Zubrick, Stephen R., 2019. "Sources of ethnicity differences in non-cognitive development in children and adolescents," EconStor Preprints 205801, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    6. Chiara Zisler & Damiano Pregaldini & Uschi Backes-Gellner, 2023. "Opening doors for immigrants: The importance of occupational and workplace-based cultural skills for successful labor market entry," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0204, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW).
    7. María Ladrón de Guevara Rodríguez & Oscar David Marcenaro-Gutierrez & Luis Alejandro Lopez-Agudo, 2023. "On the Gender Gap of Soft-Skills: the Spanish Case," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 16(1), pages 167-197, February.
    8. Marcenaro-Gutierrez, O.D. & Lopez-Agudo, L.A. & Henriques, C.O., 2021. "Are soft skills conditioned by conflicting factors? A multiobjective programming approach to explore the trade-offs," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 18-40.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marcenaro-Gutierrez, O.D. & Lopez-Agudo, L.A. & Henriques, C.O., 2021. "Are soft skills conditioned by conflicting factors? A multiobjective programming approach to explore the trade-offs," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 18-40.
    2. Briole, Simon & Le Forner, Hélène & Lepinteur, Anthony, 2020. "Children’s socio-emotional skills: Is there a quantity–quality trade-off?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    3. Richard J. Murnane, 2013. "U.S. High School Graduation Rates: Patterns and Explanations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(2), pages 370-422, June.
    4. David Figlio & Umut Özek, 2020. "Cross-Generational Differences in Educational Outcomes in the Second Great Wave of Immigration," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 15(4), pages 648-674, Fall.
    5. Timothy M. Diette & Ruth Uwaifo Oyelere, 2017. "Do limited English students jeopardize the education of other students? Lessons from the North Carolina public school system," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(5), pages 446-461, September.
    6. Figlio, D. & Karbownik, K. & Salvanes, K.G., 2016. "Education Research and Administrative Data," Handbook of the Economics of Education,, Elsevier.
    7. Alberto Ortega & Tyler Ludwig, 2023. "Immigrant English Proficiency, Children’s Educational Performance, and Parental Involvement," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 693-719, June.
    8. Maggie Jones & Michael Barber, 2019. "Inequalities in Test Scores between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Youth in Canada," Department Discussion Papers 1904, Department of Economics, University of Victoria.
    9. Nguyen, Ha Trong & Connelly, Luke & Le, Huong Thu & Mitrou, Francis & Taylor, Catherine L. & Zubrick, Stephen R., 2019. "Sources of ethnicity differences in non-cognitive development in children and adolescents," EconStor Preprints 205801, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    10. Nguyen, Ha Trong & Connelly, Luke & Le, Huong Thu & Mitrou, Francis & Taylor, Catherine & Zubrick, Stephen, 2018. "Explaining the evolution of ethnicity differentials in academic achievements: The role of time investments," MPRA Paper 90534, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Moroni, Gloria & Nicoletti, Cheti & Tominey, Emma, 2019. "Child Socio-Emotional Skills: The Role of Parental Inputs," IZA Discussion Papers 12432, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Barber, Michael & Jones, Maggie E.C., 2021. "Inequalities in test scores between Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth in Canada," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    13. Seth Gershenson & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, 2016. "Linking Teacher Quality, Student Attendance, and Student Achievement," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 11(2), pages 125-149, Spring.
    14. Michael Baker & Kevin Milligan, 2016. "Boy-Girl Differences in Parental Time Investments: Evidence from Three Countries," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(4), pages 399-441.
    15. Marie C. Hull, 2023. "What divides the first and second generations? Family time of arrival and educational outcomes for immigrant youth," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 754-787, January.
    16. Helen F. Ladd & Lucy C. Sorensen, 2017. "Returns to Teacher Experience: Student Achievement and Motivation in Middle School," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 12(2), pages 241-279, Spring.
    17. Diette, Timothy M. & Uwaifo Oyelere, Ruth, 2012. "Do Significant Immigrant Inflows Create Negative Education Impacts? Lessons from the North Carolina Public School System," IZA Discussion Papers 6561, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Nirav Mehta, 2019. "Measuring quality for use in incentive schemes: The case of “shrinkage” estimators," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(4), pages 1537-1577, November.
    19. Andrew J. Bibler, 2020. "Household Composition and Gender Differences in Parental Time Investments," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(4), pages 1415-1435, August.
    20. LUIS LOCAY & TRACY L. REGAN & ARTHUR M. DIAMOND Jr, 2013. "The Effects Of Spanish-Language Background On Completed Schooling And Aptitude Test Scores," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(1), pages 527-562, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:78:y:2020:i:c:s0272775720305227. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/econedurev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.