IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bdr/ensayo/v29y2011i65p12-59.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Colombian Immigrants In The United States Of America: Education Levels, Job Qualifications And The Decision To Go Back Home

Author

Listed:
  • Carlos Alberto Medina
  • Enrique López
  • Martha Misas

Abstract

This document shows that Colombian immigrants, who returned to the country from the United States between 1990 and 2005, were on average less well-educated than those who decided to stay in the U.S. This is a fact that has contributed to emphasizing the positive selection made by Colombians when choosing the U.S. as their destination, and, as a result, has increased the net flight of human capital (the so-called brain drain). Although data does not allow us to include the quality of the jobs that immi-grants are performing in the U.S. as a determinant of the decision to return, it allows us to show that Colombian immigrants are usually engaged in jobs that require qualifications commensurate with the level of education. We also provide evidence that Colombia is a net exporter of 5% of its population with a university or post-graduate degree.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlos Alberto Medina & Enrique López & Martha Misas, 2011. "Colombian Immigrants In The United States Of America: Education Levels, Job Qualifications And The Decision To Go Back Home," Revista ESPE - Ensayos sobre Política Económica, Banco de la Republica de Colombia, vol. 29(65), pages 12-59, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdr:ensayo:v:29:y:2011:i:65:p:12-59
    DOI: 10.32468/Espe.6501
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.32468/Espe.6501
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.32468/Espe.6501?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The skill content of recent technological change: an empirical exploration," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov.
    2. Carlos Medina & Lina Cardona, 2010. "The Effects of Remittances on Household Consumption, Education Attendance and Living Standards: the Case of Colombia," Lecturas de Economía, Universidad de Antioquia, Departamento de Economía, issue 72, pages 11-44.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Samantha A. Sharpe & Cristina M. Martinez-Fernandez, 2021. "The Implications of Green Employment: Making a Just Transition in ASEAN," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-19, July.
    2. Tommaso AGASISTI & Geraint JOHNES & Marco PACCAGNELLA, 2021. "Tasks, occupations and wages in OECD countries," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 160(1), pages 85-112, March.
    3. Katrin Huber & Geske Rolvering, 2023. "Public child care and mothers’ career trajectories," Working Papers 228, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    4. Loebbing, Jonas, 2018. "An Elementary Theory of Endogenous Technical Change and Wage Inequality," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181603, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Patrick Mellacher, 2021. "Growth, Inequality and Declining Business Dynamism in a Unified Schumpeter Mark I + II Model," Papers 2111.09407, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.
    6. Nicholas Bloom & Tarek Alexander Hassan & Aakash Kalyani & Josh Lerner & Ahmed Tahoun, 2021. "The diffusion of disruptive technologies," CEP Discussion Papers dp1798, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    7. Keller, Wolfgang & Utar, Hale, 2023. "International trade and job polarization: Evidence at the worker level," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    8. J. Bradford Jensen & Lori G. Kletzer, 2010. "Measuring Tradable Services and the Task Content of Offshorable Services Jobs," NBER Chapters, in: Labor in the New Economy, pages 309-335, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Rabensteiner, Thomas & Guschanski, Alexander, 2022. "Autonomy and wage divergence: evidence from European survey data," Greenwich Papers in Political Economy 37925, University of Greenwich, Greenwich Political Economy Research Centre.
    10. Iftekhairul Islam & Fahad Shaon, 2020. "If the Prospect of Some Occupations Are Stagnating With Technological Advancement? A Task Attribute Approach to Detect Employment Vulnerability," Papers 2001.02783, arXiv.org.
    11. Nunes, Ashley, 2016. "Increased productivity efforts yield few rewards in the knowledge economy," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 338-347.
    12. Lex Borghans & Bas ter Weel, 2011. "Computers, skills and wages," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(29), pages 4607-4622.
    13. Aleksandra Parteka & Joanna Wolszczak-Derlacz, 2020. "Wage response to global production links: evidence for workers from 28 European countries (2005–2014)," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 156(4), pages 769-801, November.
    14. Bhorat, Haroon & Goga, Sumayya & Stanwix, Benjamin, 2014. "Skills-biased labour demand and the pursuit of inclusive growth in South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series 130, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    15. David Hémous & Morten Olsen, 2022. "The Rise of the Machines: Automation, Horizontal Innovation, and Income Inequality," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 179-223, January.
    16. Ying Zhang & Yingli Huang, 2023. "Killing Two Birds with One Stone or Missing One of Them? The Synergistic Governance Effect of China’s Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme on Pollution Control and Carbon Emission Reduction," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-25, June.
    17. Maynou, L. & McGuire, A. & Serra-Sastre, V., 2019. "Exploring the Impact of New Medical Technology on Workforce Planning," Working Papers 19/07, Department of Economics, City University London.
    18. Battisti, Michele & Gatto, Massimo Del & Parmeter, Christopher F., 2022. "Skill-biased technical change and labor market inefficiency," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    19. Holmes, Craig & Mayhew, Ken, 2015. "Have UK Earnings Distributions Polarised?," INET Oxford Working Papers 2015-02, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    20. Hamid Boustanifar & Everett Grant & Ariell Reshef, 2018. "Wages and Human Capital in Finance: International Evidence, 1970–2011 [Financial reform: what shakes it? What shapes it?]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(2), pages 699-745.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    International Migration; Returned Migrants; Task Qualification; contamination bias;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F20 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - General
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • C49 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Other

    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:bdr:ensayo:v:29:y:2011:i:65:p:12-59. 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: Clorith Angélica Bahos Olivera (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/brcgvco.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.