October 2012

IZA DP No. 6899: The Human Capital (Schooling) of Immigrants in America

published in: Barry Chiswick and Paul Miller. (eds.), Handbook on the Economics of International Migration, Volume 1A, Chapter 4, pp. 167-195, 2014

This paper deals with several salient issues about immigrants to the United States and their education. These issues include a comparison of the schooling accomplishments of immigrants and the native-born that emphasizes the considerable diversity in the schooling accomplishments among different immigrant sub-groups and between legal and undocumented migrants. I also examine the role of the foreign-born who come to the United States for post-secondary schooling. Finally, I show that the educational generational progress among all groups of immigrants to the United States has been quite impressive during the 19th and 20th centuries.