Using 2004-2008 data from the American Time Use Survey, we show that sharp differences between the time use of immigrants and natives become noticeable when activities are distinguished by incidence and intensity. We develop a theory of the process of assimilation – what immigrants do with...

Much of the socioeconomic mobility achieved by U.S. immigrant families takes place across rather than within generations. When assessing the long-term integration of immigrants, it is therefore important to analyze differences not just between the foreign-born and U.S-born, but also across...

Over the last several decades, two of the most significant developments in the U.S. labor market have been: (1) rising inequality, and (2) growth in both the size and the diversity of immigration flows. Because a large share of new immigrants arrive with very low levels of schooling, English...

Using unique Current Population Survey data from November 1979 and 1989, this paper compares the wage structure across generations of Mexican-origin men. I find that the sizable earnings advantage U.S.-born Mexican Americans enjoy over Mexican immigrants arises not just from intergenerational...

The literature on immigrant assimilation and intergenerational progress has sometimes reached surprising conclusions, such as the puzzle of immigrant advantage which finds that Hispanic immigrants sometimes have better health than U.S.-born Hispanics. While numerous studies have attempted to...

The authors explore unique complete-count data from the 1930 Census in which a respondent's race was assigned by enumerators and "Mexican" was one of the possible responses. Census enumerators frequently and selectively assigned a non-Mexican race - predominantly "white" - to U.S.-born...

Numerous studies find that U.S.-born Hispanics differ significantly from non-Hispanic whites on important measures of human capital, including health. Nevertheless, almost all studies rely on subjective measures of ethnic self-identification to identify immigrants' U.S.-born descendants. This...

Using Census and CPS data, we show that U.S.-born Mexican Americans who marry non-Mexicans are substantially more educated and English proficient, on average, than are Mexican Americans who marry co-ethnics (whether they be Mexican Americans or Mexican immigrants). In addition, the non-Mexican...

U.S.-born Mexican Americans suffer a large schooling deficit relative to other Americans, and standard data sources suggest that this deficit does not shrink between the 2nd and later generations. Standard data sources lack information on grandparents’ countries of birth, however, which...