The Earnings of Immigrant Men in Australia: Assimilation, Cohort Effects, and Macroeconomic Conditions.

This paper analyzes the earnings of immigrant men in Australia using data from Income Distribution Surveys for 1982, 1986, and 1990. The paper expands on the standard approach used in the literature to evaluate immigrant earnings adjustment by considering the impact of current labor market conditions and conditions at labor market entry on current earnings. Immigrants from non-English speaking backgrounds have significantly lower earnings on arrival in Australia compared with native-born males and this gap is not narrowed as years in Australia increase. However, poorer macroeconomic conditions at entry are found to have a significantly smaller negative effect on the earnings of immigrants from non-English speaking backgrounds than native-born males. Copyright 1999 by The Economic Society of Australia.