IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v101y2011i3p603-08.html

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

Author

Listed:
  • Brian Duncan
  • Stephen J. Trejo

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2011. "Tracking Intergenerational Progress for Immigrant Groups: The Problem of Ethnic Attrition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 603-608, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:101:y:2011:i:3:p:603-08
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.3.603
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2011. "Intermarriage and the Intergenerational Transmission of Ethnic Identity and Human Capital for Mexican Americans," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(2), pages 195-227.
    2. Delia Furtado, 2012. "Human Capital And Interethnic Marriage Decisions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 50(1), pages 82-93, January.
    3. George J. Borjas, 2007. "Mexican Immigration to the United States," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number borj06-1, January.
    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. Julie Park & Stephanie Nawyn & Megan Benetsky, 2015. "Feminized Intergenerational Mobility Without Assimilation? Post-1965 U.S. Immigrants and the Gender Revolution," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(5), pages 1601-1626, October.
    2. Sakamoto, Arthur & Amaral, Ernesto F. L. & Wang, Sharron Xuanren & Nelson, Courtney, 2021. "The socioeconomic attainments of second-generation Nigerian and other black Americans: Evidence from the Current Population Survey, 2009–2019," OSF Preprints rgm5f, Center for Open Science.
    3. Peter McHenry & Melissa McInerney, 2015. "Estimating Hispanic-White Wage Gaps Among Women: The Importance of Controlling for Cost of Living," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 249-273, September.
    4. Alain Bélanger & Patrick Sabourin & Guillaume Marois & Jennifer Van Hook & Samuel Vézina, 2019. "A framework for the prospective analysis of ethno-cultural super-diversity," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 41(11), pages 293-330.
    5. John Iceland & Gregory Sharp, 2013. "White Residential Segregation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas: Conceptual Issues, Patterns, and Trends from the U.S. Census, 1980 to 2010," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 32(5), pages 663-686, October.
    6. Van C. Tran & Nicol M. Valdez, 2017. "Second-Generation Decline or Advantage? Latino Assimilation in the Aftermath of the Great Recession," International Migration Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(1), pages 155-190, March.
    7. Francisca Antman & Brian Duncan, 2015. "Incentives to Identify: Racial Identity in the Age of Affirmative Action," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(3), pages 710-713, July.
    8. Bertoli, Simone & Clerc, Melchior & Loper, Jordan & Roca Fernández, Èric, 2025. "Migration and the epidemiological approach: Time and self-selection into foreign ancestries matter," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    9. repec:osf:osfxxx:rgm5f_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Osea Giuntella, 2016. "Assimilation and Health: Evidence From Linked Birth Records of Second- and Third-Generation Hispanics," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(6), pages 1979-2004, December.
    11. Aycan Çelikaksoy, 2014. "Parental Background and Union Formation Behavior of Native Born Individuals in Sweden with a Foreign Background," Societies, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-12, June.
    12. Casey F. Breen, 2023. "Late-Life Changes in Ethnoracial Self-identification: Evidence from Social Security Administrative Data," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(1), pages 1-18, February.
    13. Duncan, Brian & Trejo, Stephen J., 2011. "Low-Skilled Immigrants and the U.S. Labor Market," IZA Discussion Papers 5964, IZA Network @ LISER.
    14. 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.
    15. Ha Trong Nguyen & Luke B. Connelly & Huong Thu Le & Francis Mitrou & Catherine L. Taylor & Stephen R. Zubrick, 2020. "Ethnicity differentials in academic achievements: the role of time investments," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(4), pages 1381-1418, October.

    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. Delia Furtado & Stephen J. Trejo, 2013. "Interethnic marriages and their economic effects," Chapters, in: Amelie F. Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Migration, chapter 15, pages 276-292, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2017. "The Complexity of Immigrant Generations: Implications for Assessing the Socioeconomic Integration of Hispanics and Asians," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 70(5), pages 1146-1175, October.
    3. Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2015. "Assessing the Socioeconomic Mobility and Integration of U.S. Immigrants and Their Descendants," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 657(1), pages 108-135, January.
    4. Duncan, Brian & Trejo, Stephen J., 2011. "Low-Skilled Immigrants and the U.S. Labor Market," IZA Discussion Papers 5964, IZA Network @ LISER.
    5. Duncan, Brian & Grogger, Jeffrey & Leon, Ana Sofia & Trejo, Stephen J., 2020. "New evidence of generational progress for Mexican Americans," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    6. Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2009. "Ancestry versus ethnicity: the complexity and selectivity of Mexican identification in the United States," Research in Labor Economics, in: Ethnicity and Labor Market Outcomes, pages 31-66, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    7. Alicia Adserà & Ana Ferrer, 2014. "Immigrants and Demography: Marriage, Divorce, and Fertility," Working Papers 1401, University of Waterloo, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2014.
    8. Olga Nottmeyer, 2015. "Intermarriage and the economic success of immigrants," World of Labour, LISER, pages 160-160, June.
    9. Delia Furtado, 2009. "Cross-nativity marriages and human capital levels of children," Research in Labor Economics, in: Ethnicity and Labor Market Outcomes, pages 273-296, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    10. Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2018. "Identifying the Later-Generation Descendants of U.S. Immigrants: Issues Arising from Selective Ethnic Attrition," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 677(1), pages 131-138, May.
    11. Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2011. "Intermarriage and the Intergenerational Transmission of Ethnic Identity and Human Capital for Mexican Americans," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(2), pages 195-227.
    12. Daniel Lichter, 2013. "Integration or Fragmentation? Racial Diversity and the American Future," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(2), pages 359-391, April.
    13. Fairlie Robert & Woodruff Christopher M., 2010. "Mexican-American Entrepreneurship," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-44, February.
    14. Josue Ortega & Philipp Hergovich, 2017. "The Strength of Absent Ties: Social Integration via Online Dating," Papers 1709.10478, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2018.
    15. Gordon Hanson & Chen Liu & Craig McIntosh, 2017. "The Rise and Fall of U.S. Low-Skilled Immigration," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 48(1 (Spring), pages 83-168.
    16. Matthias Parey & Jens Ruhose & Fabian Waldinger & Nicolai Netz, 2017. "The Selection of High-Skilled Emigrants," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(5), pages 776-792, December.
    17. Lucht, Michael & Haas, Anette, 2015. "The productivity effect of migrants : wage cost advantages and heterogeneous firms," IAB-Discussion Paper 201505, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    18. Barry R. Chiswick & Paul W. Miller, 2018. "Do native-born bilinguals in the US earn more?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 563-583, September.
    19. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Viola von Berlepsch, 2012. "When migrants rule: the legacy of mass migration on economic development in the US," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1216, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Aug 2012.
    20. Lu, Weijie & Niu, Geng & Zhou, Yang, 2021. "Individualism and financial inclusion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 268-288.

    More about this item

    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:aea:aecrev:v:101:y:2011:i:3:p:603-08. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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.