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IZA
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Human Capital and Earnings of Female Immigrants to Australia, Canada, and the United States
by
Heather Antecol, Deborah A. Cobb-Clark, Stephen Trejo
(September 2002)
published in: Host Societies and the Reception of Immigrants, Jeffrey G. Reitz (ed.), San Diego: Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, 2003, 327-359
Abstract:
Census data for 1990/91 indicate that Australian and Canadian female immigrants have
higher levels of English fluency, education (relative to native-born women), and income
(relative to native-born women) than do U.S. female immigrants. A prominent explanation for
this skill deficit of U.S. immigrant women is that the United States receives a much larger
share of immigrants from Latin America than do the other two countries. Similar to previous
findings for male immigrants, the apparent skill disadvantage of foreign-born women in the
United States (relative to foreign-born women in Australia and Canada) shrinks dramatically
once we exclude immigrants originating in Latin America. In all three countries, men are
much more likely than women to gain admission on the basis of immigration criteria related to
labor market considerations rather than family relationships. For this reason, we might expect
that the stronger emphasis on skill-based admissions in Australia and Canada compared to
the United States would have a larger impact on cross-country differences in the skill content
of male rather than female immigration flows. Therefore, our findings of similar patterns for
men and women and of the key role played by national origin both suggest that factors other
than immigration policy per se are important contributors to the observed skill differences
between immigrants to these three destination countries.
Text: See Discussion Paper No. 575
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