IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/labeco/v92y2025ics0927537124001635.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unlucky migrants: Scarring effect of recessions on the assimilation of the foreign born

Author

Listed:
  • Lucchetti, Gabriele
  • Ruggieri, Alessandro

Abstract

This paper studies how aggregate labor market conditions affect the intra-generational assimilation of immigrants. Using data from the American Community Survey, we leverage variation in the forecast errors for national and local unemployment rates in the US at the time of arrival of different cohorts of immigrants to identify short- and long-run effects of recessions on their careers. We document that immigrants who enter the US when the labor market is slack face large and persistent earnings reductions: a 1 p.p. rise in the unemployment rate at the time of migration reduces annual earnings by 3.9 percent on impact and 1.4 percent after 12 years since migration, relative to the average US native. This effect is not homogeneous across migrants: males without a college education from low-income countries are the ones with largest losses. Change in the employment composition across occupations with different skill content is the key driver: were occupational attainment during periods of high unemployment unchanged for immigrants, assimilation in annual earnings would slow down on average by only 3 years, instead of 12. Slower assimilation costs between 1.7 and 2.5 percent of lifetime earnings to immigrants entering the US labor market when unemployment is high.

Suggested Citation

  • Lucchetti, Gabriele & Ruggieri, Alessandro, 2025. "Unlucky migrants: Scarring effect of recessions on the assimilation of the foreign born," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:92:y:2025:i:c:s0927537124001635
    DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2024.102667
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537124001635
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.labeco.2024.102667?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Immigration; Earnings assimilation; Low-skill jobs; Business cycle;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:92:y:2025:i:c:s0927537124001635. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/labeco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.