IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp12700.html

Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Abilities of Immigrants: New Perspectives on Migrant Quality from a Selective Immigration Country

Author

Listed:
  • Naghsh Nejad, Maryam

    (University of Technology, Sydney)

  • Schurer, Stefanie

    (University of Sydney)

Abstract

Economic theory suggests that selective immigration policies based on observable characteristics will affect unobservable migrant quality. Little empirical evidence exists on this hypothesis. We quantify traditionally unobservable components of migrant quality in Australia, a high-migrant share OECD country with a selective immigration policy. We proxy migrant quality with widely-accepted measures of personality and cognitive ability. Both first- and second-generation immigrants outperform natives on socially-beneficial personality traits. While first-generation migrants suffer language-ability penalties, their off-spring overcome these penalties and outperform natives in cognitive ability. Immigrants do not outperform natives in the labor market, a finding which may be explained by heterogeneous wage returns to non-cognitive ability.

Suggested Citation

  • Naghsh Nejad, Maryam & Schurer, Stefanie, 2019. "Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Abilities of Immigrants: New Perspectives on Migrant Quality from a Selective Immigration Country," IZA Discussion Papers 12700, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12700
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp12700.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ran Abramitzky & Leah Platt Boustan & Katherine Eriksson, 2012. "Europe's Tired, Poor, Huddled Masses: Self-Selection and Economic Outcomes in the Age of Mass Migration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(5), pages 1832-1856, August.
    2. Almlund, Mathilde & Duckworth, Angela Lee & Heckman, James & Kautz, Tim, 2011. "Personality Psychology and Economics," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 1-181, Elsevier.
    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. 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. Dessi, Roberta & Zhao, Xiaojian, 2011. "Self-Esteem, Shame and Personal Motivation," TSE Working Papers 10-191, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Dec 2013.
    2. 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.
    3. Dessi, Roberta & Zhao, Xiaojian, 2014. "Over-Confidence, Shame and Investments," IDEI Working Papers 838, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    4. Proto, Eugenio & Rustichini, Aldo, "undated". "Life Satisfaction, Household Income and Personality Traits," Economic Research Papers 270640, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    5. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/6s39gt704s95upu27ma7s3p6q8 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Boyce, Christopher & Czajkowski, Mikołaj & Hanley, Nick, 2019. "Personality and economic choices," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 82-100.
    7. Nikolova, Milena & Roman, Monica & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2017. "Left behind but doing good? Civic engagement in two post-socialist countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 658-684.
    8. Iryna Hayduk & Maude Toussaint‐Comeau, 2022. "Determinants of noncognitive skills: Mediating effects of siblings' interaction and parenting quality," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(4), pages 677-694, October.
    9. Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Schurer, Stefanie, 2012. "The stability of big-five personality traits," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 11-15.
    10. Richard Hornbeck, 2020. "Dust Bowl Migrants: Identifying an Archetype," Working Papers 2020-120, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    11. Orazio Attanasio & Sarah Cattan & Emla Fitzsimons & Costas Meghir & Marta Rubio-Codina, 2020. "Estimating the Production Function for Human Capital: Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial in Colombia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(1), pages 48-85, January.
    12. James J. Heckman, 2019. "The Race Between Demand and Supply: Tinbergen’s Pioneering Studies of Earnings Inequality," De Economist, Springer, vol. 167(3), pages 243-258, September.
    13. Vincent Geloso & Linan Peng, 2024. "Postbellum electoral politics in California and the genesis of the Chinese exclusion act of 1882," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 403-434, June.
    14. 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.
    15. Jun Wang & Chengjuan Liao & Xuan Wan & Hui Song, 2021. "Skill Formation, Employment Discrimination, and Wage Inequality: Evidence from the People’s Republic of China," ADBI Working Papers 1283, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    16. Kai Hong & Peter A. Savelyev & Kegon T. K. Tan, 2020. "Understanding the Mechanisms Linking College Education with Longevity," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(3), pages 371-400.
    17. Szabó-Morvai, Ágnes & Kiss, Hubert János, 2022. "Különböznek-e a roma és nem roma diákok nem kognitív képességeikben? [Do Roma and non-Roma students differ in their non-cognitive abilities?]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(11), pages 1433-1456.
    18. Francesco Agostinelli & Matthias Doepke & Giuseppe Sorrenti & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2026. "It Takes a Village: The Economics of Parenting with Neighborhood and Peer Effects," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 134(1), pages 313-365.
    19. Hendrik Thiel & Stephan L. Thomsen, 2015. "Individual Poverty Paths and the Stability of Control-Perception," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 794, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    20. Thomas Pave Sohnesen, 2019. "Are you what you consume?: Impact of food, soft drinks, and coffee on cognitive and non-cognitive test scores," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-117, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    21. Vaaramo, Mikko & Huikari, Sanna & Ala-Mursula, Leena & Miettunen, Jouko & Korhonen, Marko, 2024. "Temperament traits and economic preferences predict occupational choice beyond human capital variables," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp12700. 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: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.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.