The Labor Market Attainment of Immigrants in the Antebellum United States

This paper analyzes the occupational status of adult White foreign-born men in the antebellum United States, compared to White native-born men, and among the foreign born by country of origin. Hypotheses are developed regarding the effects on occupational status of human capital, demographic, and immigrant-related variables. The hypotheses are tested using the PUMS data for the 100 percent sample (full count) from the 1850 Census of Population, the first census to ask for the male respondent's occupation, as well as the linked 1850-1860 Census data. Two quantitative measures of occupational status serve as the dependent variables - the Occupational Income Score and the Ducan Socioeconomic Index. The hypotheses are found to be consistent with the data. Moreover, other variables the same, while there is a large gap in occupational status between the foreign and native born just after the former arrive, this gap narrows very quickly and, other variables the same, White male immigrants reached occupational-income parity with their native-born counterparts at about 8.4 years after immigration.