IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jhucap/doi10.1086-664794.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Negative and Positive Assimilation, Skill Transferability, and Linguistic Distance

Author

Listed:
  • Barry R. Chiswick
  • Paul W. Miller

Abstract

This paper synthesizes two models of immigrant assimilation: "positive assimilation" if earnings rise with duration as destination-relevant skills are acquired and "negative assimilation" if immigrants with highly transferable skills experience declining earnings as their economic rent diminishes. Hypotheses are developed and tested with earnings of adult male immigrants in the 2000 U.S. Census. "Linguistic distance" from English of an immigrant's mother tongue is the index of skill transferability. Only immigrants from English-speaking developed countries experience negative assimilation. Immigrants from other countries experience positive assimilation, the degree of assimilation increasing with linguistic distance.

Suggested Citation

  • Barry R. Chiswick & Paul W. Miller, 2012. "Negative and Positive Assimilation, Skill Transferability, and Linguistic Distance," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(1), pages 35-55.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jhucap:doi:10.1086/664794
    DOI: 10.1086/664794
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/664794
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/664794
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/664794?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul W. Miller & Barry R. Chiswick, 2002. "Immigrant earnings: Language skills, linguistic concentrations and the business cycle," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(1), pages 31-57.
    2. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn & Kerry L. Papps, 2008. "Gender, Source Country Characteristics and Labor Market Assimilation Among Immigrants: 1980-2000," NBER Working Papers 14387, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Chiswick, Barry R, 1978. "The Effect of Americanization on the Earnings of Foreign-born Men," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(5), pages 897-921, October.
    4. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2008. "The "Negative" Assimilation of Immigrants: A Special Case," IZA Discussion Papers 3563, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. William Fellner, 1979. "Contemporary Economic Problems, 1979," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 918293, September.
    6. Francine D Blau & Lawrence M Kahn & Kerry L Papps, 2011. "Gender, Source Country Characteristics, and Labor Market Assimilation among Immigrants," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(1), pages 43-58, February.
    7. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2004. "Linguistic Distance: A Quantitative Measure of the Distance Between English and Other Languages," IZA Discussion Papers 1246, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barry R. Chiswick & Paul W. Miller, 2007. "Modeling Immigrants’ Language Skills," Research in Labor Economics, in: Immigration, pages 75-128, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    2. Blau, Francine D. & Kahn, Lawrence M., 2011. "Substitution Between Individual and Cultural Capital: Pre-Migration Labor Supply, Culture and US Labor Market Outcomes Among Immigrant Woman," IZA Discussion Papers 5890, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Maani, Sholeh A. & Wang, Xingang & Rogers, Alan, 2015. "Network Effects, Ethnic Capital and Immigrants' Earnings Assimilation: Evidence from a Spatial, Hausman-Taylor Estimation," IZA Discussion Papers 9308, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Astrid Krenz, 2008. "Theorie und Empirie über den Wirkungszusammenhang zwischen sozialer Herkunft, kulturellem und sozialem Kapital, Bildung und Einkommen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 128, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    5. Jonathan A. Schwabish, 2009. "Identifying Rates of Emigration in the United States Using Administrative Earnings Records: Working Paper 2009-01," Working Papers 20516, Congressional Budget Office.
    6. Harriet Duleep & Xingfei Liu & Mark Regets, 2022. "How the earnings growth of US immigrants was underestimated," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(2), pages 381-407, April.
    7. Henna Busk & Signe Jauhiainen, 2022. "The Careers of Immigrants in Finland: Empirical Evidence for Genders and Year of Immigration," Journal of International Migration and Integration, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 2009-2030, December.
    8. Paul W. Miller & Barry R. Chiswick, 2002. "Immigrant earnings: Language skills, linguistic concentrations and the business cycle," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(1), pages 31-57.
    9. Anabela Carneiro & Natércia Fortuna & José Varejão, 2012. "Immigrants at new destinations: how they fare and why," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(3), pages 1165-1185, July.
    10. Alícia Adserà & Mariola Pytliková, 2015. "The Role of Language in Shaping International Migration," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(586), pages 49-81, August.
    11. Elena Vidal-Coso & Pau Miret-Gamundi, 2014. "The labour trajectories of immigrant women in Spain: Are there signs of upward social mobility?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 31(13), pages 337-380.
    12. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2009. "An Explanation for the Lower Payoff to Schooling for Immigrants in the Canadian Labour Market," IZA Discussion Papers 4448, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Francine Blau, 2015. "Immigrants and gender roles: assimilation vs. culture," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-21, December.
    14. Gao, Wenshu & Smyth, Russell, 2011. "Economic returns to speaking 'standard Mandarin' among migrants in China's urban labour market," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 342-352, April.
    15. Martin Kahanec & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2008. "Migration, the Quality of the Labour Force and Economic Inequality," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 781, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    16. Chiswick, Barry R. & Taengnoi, Sarinda, 2007. "Occupational Choice of High Skilled Immigrants in the United States," IZA Discussion Papers 2969, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Chiswick, Barry R., 2008. "The Economics of Language: An Introduction and Overview," IZA Discussion Papers 3568, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Plamen Nikolov & Leila Salarpour & David Titus, 2021. "Skill Downgrading Among Refugees and Economic Immigrants in Germany," Papers 2111.00319, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    19. Beenstock, Michael & Chiswick, Barry R. & Paltiel, Ari, 2005. "Endogenous Assimilation and Immigrant Adjustment in Longitudinal Data," IZA Discussion Papers 1840, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. repec:diw:diwwpp:dp957 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Maria Balgova & Hannah Illing, 2023. "Job Displacement and Migrant Labor Market Assimilation," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 246, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration

    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:ucp:jhucap:doi:10.1086/664794. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JHC .

    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.