Böhlmark, Anders () (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University)
Abstract
There is a gap in school performance between native and immigrant pupils in Sweden. This article analyzes the role of age at immigration, which is believed to be an important determinant of this gap, since it is inversely related to the time spent acquiring Sweden-specific skills before graduation. The analysis exploits within-family variation in a large set of register data on immigrant siblings (and native children) graduating from compulsory school between 1988 and 2003. The estimated negative impact from short duration of residence prior to graduation is significantly less than the one observed using a standard cross-sectional approach which fails to net out family-fixed effects. The critical age at arrival is about 10. Above this age, there is a strong negative impact on performance, where the sibling-difference estimates are 27-54 percent less negative than the cross-sectional ones. The results show both similarities and striking differences between boys and girls and between children of different origin. Moreover, children with short duration of residence perform significantly better in mathematics than in a range of subjects taken together. This demonstrates the importance of Sweden-specific skills.
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Swedish Institute for Social Research in its series Working Paper Series with number
6/2005.
Length: 38 pages Date of creation: 21 Nov 2005 Date of revision: Publication status: Forthcoming in Labour Economics. Handle: RePEc:hhs:sofiwp:2005_006
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