Full Citation

Title: Heterogeneous Returns to Schooling for Refugee and Other Adult Immigrants in U.S.

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2017

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Abstract: Schooling is a human capital skill that influences both the migration decisions of immigrants (especially for non-refugees), and the rate at which immigrants assimilate in the host country. Returns to schooling could be correlated with difficult-to-observe factors such as self- selection, and legal status, and these unobservables can affect the economic assimilation of immigrants into the host country differently. The objective of this paper is to investigate the returns to schooling for refugees and other immigrants. Refugees- a subset of immigrants- have different characteristics and face different constraints than other immigrants, and this could affect the evolution of their schooling returns in the destination country. Estimates show that non-refugees receive a much larger crude wage return for schooling at both arrival, and over time. Although educated refugees presumably have greater ability to take advantage of refugees' greater flexibility in seeking more suitable employment matches during the adjustment period, they do not see higher return growth than non-refugees do. The two groups’ returns grow over time, but refugees do not catch up with non-refugees. This suggests that schooling is more strongly correlated with unobserved skills among non-refugees, so it appears that selection into both migration and return-migration are more important factors than the advantage in terms of job search.

Url: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1286/0b36c014e0953708e2efac4c59ccceaf6042.pdf

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Shaeye, Abdihafit

Publisher: University of Alabama- Birmingham

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Education, Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Migration and Immigration

Countries: United States