Research on the educational enrollment of immigrants has typically asserted that today's immigrant children are educationally disadvantaged and that earlier waves of immigrants were more readily absorbed into the American educational system. This article addresses these assumptions, drawing on traditional assimilationist and status competition approaches to racial and ethnic stratification. Data from the 1920 IPUMS census database are used to analyze the school participation of 15 to 18 year olds who were living in their parents' homes. The findings demonstrate that the process of assimilation was not uniform for all groups. Some groups achieved parity with the native stock by the third generation, and others took at least an additional generation or experienced declines in the proportions who were enrolled in school. In general, the results suggest strong parallels between the educational experiences of white ethnic youths in 1920 and those of today's immigrant youths.

This paper investigates an unanticipated consequence of rising income inequality, namely changes in patterns of educational assortative mating. The association between spouses' educational attainments has important implications for economic and social inequalities among families and households. Over the past 40 years in the U.S., the resemblance of husbands' and wives' educational attainments has increased markedly. For example, the proportion of couples in which spouses share the same broad education category increased by approximately 20 percent and the odds of educational homogamy increased by about 25 percent during this period (Schwartz and Mare 2005). Although rising inequality among households may be a consequence of increasing spousal resemblance on educational attainment, income inequality among individuals may itself be a cause of increasing in educational assortative mating. Rising earnings inequality has resulted in increasing returns to education and thus wider economic and social gaps between education groups. These widening gaps may account for couples' increasing tendency to marry along educational lines. In this paper, we evaluate this argument by analyzing Decennial Census and Current Population Survey data from 1940 to 2003 on the educational resemblance of spouses and the income distributions of men and women within education groups. We also consider several other factors that may affect assortative mating trends, including increases in the relative earnings of women in the immigrant population and changes in the timing of schooling and marriage. Trends in th earnings gaps between educational groups and reduced inequality in the workforce appear to account for most of the change in several key measures of spousal resemblance in educational attainment since the early 1970s. From 1940 to the early 1970s, changes in educational assortative mating may be mainly the result of changes in the timing of school leaving and entry into marriage.

In earlier research focusing on the 1980s and early 1990s, Hunt and Mueller (2004) found that US states have wider returns to skill than Canadian provinces. This favoured the migration of higher-skilled Canadians to the US. In this study, we extend this analysis to include average tax incidence for each income decile in each of the potential areas to which migration occurs as well as per capita expenditures on various public services. We use an expanded observational base of microdata from the US and Canadian censuses of 2000/2001. By being able to identify highly skilled individuals, through the use of this model, we perform simulations regarding the types of economic and non-economic variables that motivate individuals to migrate both within their home country and between countries, as well as the magnitude of these migrations. We find that individuals with lower skills, Canadian nativity (especially French speakers), and age are all negatively related to the propensity to migrate. Amongst those who do migrate, an area with higher mean returns to skill, higher employment growth rates, moderate climates, and geographical proximity to the migrants area of origin increase the probability of migration to these areas. The simulations suggest that increasing after-tax returns to skill and fiscal equalization (reducing both average taxes to their average US level as well as expenditures to maintain a balanced budget) would be the most effective policies in reducing southward migration, especially amongst the highly skilled.

The new, five-volume Millennial Edition of Historical Statistics of the United States has arrived. It is a great success that will easily fill the shoes and shelf-space of the well-worn, two-volume Bicentennial Edition. Unlike its predecessor, the Millennial Edition was neither sponsored nor published by the United States Census Bureau. Although the Census Bureau declined to participate in the new project, it did give a stamp of approval to the endeavor and allowed the new edition to build freely on the earlier editions. Ultimately, the Millennial Edition is every bit as authoritative as the earlier editions in terms of its underlying scholarship, and it is even more ambitious in its coverage. The lack of government involvement, however, shifted costs to the academic community on both the production and consumption sides. At $990, this is not a collection that every scholar can afford to have on her shelf for frequent consultation, but I imagine that internet access to the data series through library subscriptions will ease that constraint.

Individual US data are merged with aggregate data by state for the US and used to estimate the external benefits of education. Aggregate state-wide variables used are the average level of education and per capita physical capital for each state. Individual variables used are each working adults labor force experience, years of completed schooling, gender and immigration status. One difference from previous studies that estimate external benefits to education is that data on physical capital for each region (state) are available and used. Hence, the study is based on an explicit production function of the form suggested by Lucas. Strong evidence of the presence of external benefits to education for the US is found.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the quality changes of female immigrants during 1970-2000, using Census data. The quality is estimated in both observable and unobservable dimensions. I examine two observable human capital variables educational attainment and language ability, and find there are obvious trend changes following the changes in immigration law regime. To estimate the unobservable quality changes, I calculate the differences of regression-adjusted wages between two cohorts using the methodology in Borjas (1985). It is found that the female immigrants' quality declines over time, with the decline in the most recent 10 years less obvious than in the previous two decades. Moreover, the quality declines of female immigrants are smaller in magnitude compared to those of male immigrants. To address the estimation problems caused by women's discontinuous work history and endogenous selection into labor force, I make some modifications to Borjas's model.

This article examines variation in partisanship levels across the United States between 1880 and 1940 and suggests that the introduction of three electoral laws in this time periodparty registration, primaries and secret ballotscan explain the geographic variation in partisanship levels across the United States during this era. Specifically, the article argues that the introduction of party registration increased the observability of partisan behavior; and this, in turn, increased partisanship strength in the states in which party registration was introduced. Conversely, primaries and secret ballots reduced the observability of partisan actions, which consequently weakened the level of partisanship. The authors test their theoretical predictions on aggregate levels of split-ticket voting across the United States between 1880 and 1940. The authors find considerable support for their predictions in time-series cross-section (TSCS) estimates of the effects of electoral institutions on levels of partisanship across states, support undiminished after corrections for endogeneity and selection bias.

We analyzed in detail the wages of Latinos of Mexican origin, Central/South Americans, and Puerto Ricans. The wage structure facing second and third- and higher-generation Latinos is very similar to the wage structure of third- and higher-generation White workers. Unlike African American workers, more than half of the native Latino/White wage gap can be accounted for by the lower educational attainment and potential experience of native Latino workers.

This study uses the 1999 National Study of Post-Secondary Faculty (NSOPF) published by the National Center for Education Statistics to empirically determine if U.S.--and foreign-born Hispanic faculty team earn a premium or penalty in the academic labor market. When controlling a host of factors related to academic salaries, our findings indicate that U.S.-born Hispanic faculty earn significantly more on average than their non-Hispanic white counterparts, but foreign-born Hispanics earn the same as non-Hispanics. Nevertheless, additional analyses indicate that the earnings premium accrued by U.S.-born Hispanic tends to prevail in the tails of the academic hierarchy: in the full professor ranks and in non-tenure-track positions, the latter containing a disproportionate share of Hispanic faculty.

The number of Korean emigrants to the United States has increased rapidly after the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act. As of 2000 there were 1,228,427 Koreans (both Koreans who identified themselves entirely as Koreans and those who identified as partially Koreans) in the United States. Koreans were 4th largest ethnic group among Asians in 2000 following Chinese, Filipinos, and Asian Indians. Comparative studies have led to the view of Asian Americans as model minorities who generally become middle class Americans. This view drew the attention of researchers away from the problem of poverty among Asian Americans. As a result systematic understanding of the problem of poverty among Asian Americans and among members of each ethnic group of Asian Americans is lacking. This research focuses on the problem of poverty among Korean Americans who identified themselves as entirely Koreans. Korean Americans are classified into three groups, i.e., first generation immigrants, 1.5 generation immigrants, and 2nd generation immigrants. Data are drawn from two sources: previous research works and documents, and 5% sample data of the 2000 U.S. Population Census(IPUMS, Veresion 3.0). Based on two theoretical approaches, Assimilation Approach and Human Capital Approach we propose 4 hypotheses regarding the problem of poverty by sex and generation. To test these hypotheses we use logistic regression analysis of poverty status with four types of independent variables: human capital variables, structural variables, assimilation variables, and variables related to family structure. The results of our analyses show that there are significant differences in poverty rates by gender and by generation and that there are significant differences in the predictor variables explaining poverty by gender and by generation.

This paper documents and provides an explanation for the main stylized facts about net and gross workers ßows across states in the U.S. While it is generally known that gross ßows of population across locations are signiÞcantly larger in the U.S. than within most European countries, there is considerable heterogeneity in gross and net ßows across states within the U.S. itself. The main purpose of the paper is to test whether a simple general equilibrium search model based on Lucas and Prescott (1974)'s island economy can account for the main stylized facts. The key stylized facts are as follows. In the cross-sectional dimension: (1) Gross inßow rates are more dispersed than net inßow rates, which are more dispersed than gross outßow rates. (2) Gross inßow and outßow rates are positively correlated. (3) Gross and net inßow rates are highly positively correlated, while net ßow rates and gross outßow rates are uncorrelated. In the time-series dimension, there is a large degree of persistence in both gross and net ßow rates across Census years for a given state. To address these facts, I develop a general equilibrium model of net and gross workers' ßows across locations. Net ßows are driven by shocks to local labor demand, while gross ßows are driven by idiosyncratic location-speciÞc shocks to workers' productivity. In response to shocks to the growth rate of labor productivity in a location, the model generates artiÞcial data that is generally consistent with the stylized facts listed above. *

According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau projections, most of the growth in the number of persons aged 55 and older in the near future will occur because of the aging of the Baby Boomers, who have helped to fuel the growth in the national homeownership rate to historical highs. Broadly speaking, the aging of America and growth in homeownership will have potentially important implications for the housing and mortgage industries for a number of reasons. First, listings by older homeowners are an important source of supply of existing homes for sale, and those older sellers looking to buy another home represent an important source of demand, especially for smaller, trade-down homes or homes with desirable features - e.g., homes with a first-floor bedroom, one-story homes, and condominiums - and in current and future areas of growth in retirees, especially in the West, South, and Southwest. Second, there has been a sustained increase in the demand for second and vacation homes, as well as lots for the building of future retirement homes. Third, there has been recent media attention on empty-nesters selling suburban homes in areas with good schools and purchasing real estate in urban areas to take advantage of urban amenities. Finally, the housing equity of older Americans, which was estimated to be $2.5 trillion in 2000 and has grown even larger in the last few years, is the most important non-pension asset in household portfolios, and a large reserve of untapped wealth. Indeed, there has been substantial interest in the development of new mortgage and financial-market products which allow older homeowners to tap into this wealth. Overall, issues involving housing and aging will be of growing national importance and will have direct bearing on the housing and mortgage industries.

All nations that can be characterized as developed have undergone the demographic transition from high to low levels of fertility and mortality. Most presently developed nations began their fertility transitions in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries. The United States was an exception. Evidence using census-based child-woman ratios suggests that the fertility of the white population of the United States was declining from at least the year 1800. By the end of the antebellum period in 1860, child-woman ratios had declined 33 percent. There is also indication that the free black population was experiencing a fertility transition. This transition was well in advance of significant urbanization, industrialization, and mortality decline and well in advance of every other presently developed nation with the exception of France. This paper uses census data on county-level child-woman ratios to test a variety of explanations on the antebellum American fertility transition. It also uses micro data from the IPUMS files for 1850 and 1860. A number of the explanations, including the land availability hypothesis, the local labor market-child default hypothesis, and the life cycle saving hypothesis, are consistent with the data, but nuptiality, not one of the usual explanations, emerges as likely very important.

We use county and individual-level data from 1850 and 1860 to examine the economic impact of gaining access to a railroad. Previous studies have found that rail access was positively correlated with the value of agricultural land at a point in time, and have interpreted this correlation as evidence that rail access chiefly benefitted agricultural land owners in the manner predicted by the Hekscher-Ohlin or Von Theunen models. We use a difference-in-difference strategy, comparing changes in outcomes in counties that gained rail access in the 1850s to those that either gained access earlier or did not have access before the Civil War. Most of the estimated effects are small and the signs are not wholly consistent with either model, under the null hypothesis that agriculture was the chief beneficiary of rail access. For example, we find that rail access appears to have increased urbanization, raised the likelihood of participation in the service sector, decreased agricultural yields, and reduced the share of improved acreage in total land area, opposite to the patterns predicted by either the Heckscher-Ohlin or Von Theunen models.