Age Effects in Primary Education: A Double Disadvantage for Second-Generation Immigrants

The integration of second-generation immigrant children is a major challenge for the receiving countries, especially where immigration is a recent phenomenon. Apart from family, integration begins at school. We study whether the immigrant background interacts with age effects (namely, absolute age effect and relative age effect), generating additional barriers (double disadvantage) for second-generation children in the Italian primary school. We can identify these effects because we exploit the heterogeneity in children's birthdates and because the test is given at two different points in time. We find evidence of a double disadvantage that, relative to the average native, reduces scores in Italian by 17% and in Math by 20%. In a policy perspective, we show that controlling for age effects in class composition criteria promotes integration because it delivers extra benefits to second-generation immigrant children. Besides, we point out the possibility of turning the large impact of the relative age on second-generation children to their advantage, in order to reduce the sizable penalization associated with the immigrant background.