The Assimilation of Immigrants in the U.S. Labor Market by Michael E. Hurst

Author:Michael E. Hurst [Hurst, Michael E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General
ISBN: 9781317776482
Google: uGkPEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-10-24T01:33:17+00:00

8.2 The Foreign-Born Variables

Up to this point the focus has been on what are essentially control variables, although they have a great deal of information in themselves about differences between native-born men and foreign-born men. The point of the book, however, is to examine differentials between foreign-born men and native-born men, after controlling for demographic, geographic, period, and wage effects. It is an underlying assumption here that, after controlling for schooling, area of residence, seasonality factors, expected wages, etc., inclusion of a foreign-born dummy variable and variables to specify years since migration will display fundamental innate differences between native-born men and foreign-bora men that can't be explained by differences in their means or differences in their responses.

Tests for the "foreign-born" effect and for duration in the U.S. are displayed in four basic models. First, we consider two specifications to account for years since migration. One adds a dichotomous variable to the basic model to account for simple foreign-born status, plus a continuous variable to account for YSM (years since migration), plus a variable to account for quadratic nonlinearity in the YSM variable. A second specification dispenses with the foreign-born dummy variable and replaces the continuous duration variables with incremental variables to measure discontinuities in the effects of duration in the U.S.

Each of these two specifications is then run on two separate samples—a pooled sample of both native-born and foreign-born men, and a foreign-born sample. The foreign-born sample measures the actual effects of duration in the U.S. for foreign-born men using the foreign-born characteristics and behavioral effects to estimate the equation. Thus the foreign-born sample is measuring differences between foreign-born persons at different lengths of duration. Given that there are differences in mean characteristics and behavioral effects, however, the pooled sample measures differences between foreign-born men and native-born men, holding constant differences in the mean characteristics or behavioral effects of the basic model variables.

Table 8.4 shows the coefficients and associated probabilities for each of the four models described in the previous paragraph. Only the foreign-born and years since migration variables are shown in Table 8.4, although the models control for the same "basic model" variables as in Tables 8.1 and 8.2. The basic model coefficients and probabilities are virtually identical to those in Tables 8.1 and 8.2, so are not repeated here. Instead, the complete tables are included for reference in Hurst (1997).

The dummy variable for "Foreign-born", in the upper part of the table for the pooled model, indicates the differential, ceteris paribus, between a native-born man and a foreign-born man, in the odds of being in each of the states; the associated probabilities are shown in the lower part of the table. This would be at the time of arrival for

Table 8.4. Multinomial Logit Coefficients and Probabilities of Labor Force States, Foreign Born and Years Since Migration Variables

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