The Persistence of Outcomes for Descendants of the Age of Mass Migration

The Not-So-Hot Melting Pot: The Persistence of Outcomes for Descendants of the Age of Mass Migration. Zachary Ward. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. Oct 2020, Vol. 12, No. 4: Pages 73-102. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/app.20170382

Abstract: How persistent are economic gaps across ethnicities? The convergence of ethnic gaps through the third generation of immigrants is difficult to measure because few datasets include grandparental birthplace. I overcome this limitation with a new three-generational dataset that links immigrant grandfathers in 1880 to their grandsons in 1940. I find that the persistence of ethnic gaps in occupational income is 2.5 times stronger than predicted by a standard grandfather-grandson elasticity. While part of the discrepancy is due to measurement error attenuating the grandfather-grandson elasticity, mechanisms related to geography also partially explain the stronger persistence of ethnic occupational differentials.

JEL J15, J22, J31, J51