Are Refugees Different from Economic Immigrants? Some Empirical Evidence on the Heterogeneity of Immigrant Groups in the United States

By Kalena E. Cortes. Review of Economics and Statistics, 2004

480 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper analyzes how the implicit difference in time horizons between refugees and economic immigrants affects subsequent human capital investments and wage assimilation. The analysis uses the 1980 and 1990 Integrated Public Use Samples of the Census to study labor market outcomes of immigrants who arrived in the United States from 1975 to 1980. I find that in 1980 refugee immigrants in this cohort earned 6 less and worked 14 fewer hours than economic immigrants. Both had approximately the same level of English skills. The two immigrant groups had made substantial gains by 1990; however, refugees had made greater gains. In fact, the labor market outcomes of refugee immigrants surpassed those of economic immigrants. In 1990, refugees from the 1975-1980 arrival cohort earned 20 more, worked 4 more hours, and improved their English skills by 11 relative to economic immigrants. The higher rates of human capital accumulation for refugee immigrants contribute to these findings.

Subfields: Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/855b0561cc29b03e553d11d019b7b69202244755

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Citations in the corpus

The Making of Modern America: Migratory Flows in the Age of Mass Migration (2012, background): “On the link between out-migration and immigrant behavior in the US, in most theoretical frameworks the likelihood to out-migrate affects investment into own human capital, children’s human capital, savings, and social networks [Galor and Stark 1990, Dustmann 1997, 1999, 2008, Cortes 2004].”
The Economics of Forced Migration (2013, unknown): “See Cortes (2004), Czaika and Kis-Katos (2009), Engel and Ibañez (2007) and Stark (2004) for this discussion.”
Migration and Education (2011, unknown): “55 Following this line of argument, Cortes (2004) suggests that one of the main reasons for the steeper earnings profile of refugee migrants compared to economic migrants in the U.”
Education Quality and Development Accounting (2012, background): “Previous work has shown labor market differences between refugees and non-refugees, including a large earnings gap between refugees and non-refugees (Cortes 2004, Jasso, Massey, Rosenzweig, and Smith 2000).”
Which Immigrants Are Most Innovative and Entrepreneurial? Distinctions by Entry Visa (2011, background): “U.S. firms, universities, and teaching hospitals are thus 6 Cortes (2004) finds that refugees to the United States assimilate faster than economic immigrants.”
The impact of Syrian refugees on natives’ labor market outcomes in Turkey: evidence from a quasi-experimental design (2017, background): “, Friedberg (2000), Weiss, Sauer, and Gotlibovski (2003), and Cohen-Goldner and Paserman (2011).”
Social Networks and the Dynamics of Labour Market Outcomes: Evidence from Refugees Resettled in the U.S (2012, background): “Cortes (2004) argues that refugees perform worse relative to other immigrant groups in the short-run but eventually surpass the other groups.”
The Economics of Temporary Migrations (2016, background): “Cortes (2004), on the other hand, by comparing the outcomes for economic migrants and refugees in the United States with the assumption that the latter expect to stay longer and thus have stronger incentives”
Consequences of forced migration: A survey of recent findings (2019, background): “The literature on the consequences of migration for receiving populations often does not distinguish between forced and voluntary migrants, even though the two groups of migrants may be quite different, as Cortes (2004) and Ruiz and Vargas-Silva (2018) pointed out.”
The Place Premium : Wage Differences for Identical Workers Across the US Border (2008, background): “Cortes (2004) finds that refugees who arrived in the US between 1975 and 1980 had 6% lower earnings in 1980 than economic migrants who arrived in the same period—controlling for education, age, language ability, marital status, and region of residence.”
(The Struggle for) Refugee Integration into the Labour Market: Evidence from Europe (2018, background): “As regards the first, asylum claims can be rejected, after which unsuccessful applicants are generally subject to detention and forced removal, often falling through the cracks of the asylum system and 10 For investigations into the effect of ethnic concentration on immigrant labour market outcomes,”
Differences in labour market outcomes between natives, refugees and other migrants in the UK (2018, background): “Cortes (2004) uses a two period model and shows that a lower likelihood of return leads to a greater incentive to invest in host country specific human capital.”
How do refugees use their social capital for successful labor market integration? An exploratory analysis in Germany (2017, background): “However, once refugees have been granted asylum status, they tend to stay longer than other migrants (Ward et al., 2001), and this can increase their motivation to improve their language skills, to acquire formal qualifications, and to enter the labor market in the host country (Cortes, 2004).”
On the Economics and Politics of Refugee Migration (2017, background): “Luik et al. (2016) and Cortes (2004) document a similar catch-up of refugees in Sweden and the US.”
Crime and Immigration: Evidence from Large Immigrant Waves (2013, unknown): “2 Heterogeneity in migration flows from refugees and economic migrants to the US is stressed in Cortes (2004), who demonstrates significant variation in labour market attachment and earnings, and assimilation, of these groups.”