Self-selection and Multigenerational Mobility of American Immigrants
Last year I wrote a post noting that the income of group of immigrants in the US is correlated with the income of the country from where those immigrants hailed. I noted that this correlation is especially strong for immigrants in the US for the longest.
I just stumbled on this paper from earlier this year by Joakim Ruist. Here’s the abstract:
This paper aims to explain the high intergenerational persistence of inequality between groups of different ancestries in the US. Initial inequality between immigrant groups is interpreted as largely due to differently strong self-selection on unobservable skill endowments. These endowments are in turn assumed to be more persistent than observable outcomes across generations. If skill endowments are responsible for a larger share of total inequality between immigrant groups than between individuals generally, the former inequality will be more persistent. This explanation implies the additional testable hypothesis that the correlation between home country characteristics that influence the self-selection pattern – in particular the distance to the US – and migrants’ or their descendants’ outcomes will increase with every new generation of descendants. This prediction receives strong empirical support: The migration distance of those who moved to the US around the turn of the 20th century has risen from explaining only 14% of inequality between ancestry groups in the immigrant generation itself, to a full 49% in the generation of their great-grandchildren today.
Here’s a paragraph from the conclusion:
The policy relevance of this result lies to a large extent in what it does not say. It is well known that inequality between ancestry groups in America is highly persistent, and also that some groups experience more mobility than others. Previous explanations for this to some extent indicate that something is “wrong”, in that certain groups’ upward mobility is hampered either by these groups’ own behavior, or American society’s behavior towards them. As such they also indicate a role for policy in improving the situation. In contrast, according to the results and interpretation reported here, ancestry groups’ low socioeconomic mobility is not an indication that something is wrong, but merely that the impact of migrants’ self-selection is longer-lasting than previously thought.
Here’s the last paragraph in the paper:
Finally these results say something important not only about migrants’ self-selection and intergenerational mobility, but also about America. In the 19th century, many millions of Europeans dreamed of a new life in America. But the journey was costly, and at least until the arrival of transatlantic steamships even dangerous, and only some actually made the leap. The results reported in this study not only support the view that those who actually did make the journey were equipped with qualities not equally possessed by all of those who did not. They also tell us that these qualities remained for several generations with their descendants, who made their native country the global hub of knowledge, innovation, entrepreneurship, and industry of the 20th century.
The modern era being what it is, I imagine that today, in some countries, it is easier to be a migrant than to stay put. Ruist’s paper would imply that immigrants from such countries might, on average, have multiple generations of descendants with particularly low SES scores.
Does the study address the point that many of the first generation Anglo-Saxon immigrants to the US were taken out of jails and debt prisons.
The first generations of American settlers were often from the lowest levels of English society.
1. When one read’s Bernard Bailyn’s “Voyagers to the West,” about the great migration from British Isles, particularly Ireland and Scotland at the end of the 7 years War (1763) to beginning of the Revolution (1774), you see a great deal of distress as people left the land of their ancestors for America, driven by market forces of “enclosure.” It is also noted that from back country New York to souther reaches of the Appalachian Plateau these are now some of the poorest, socially distressed, and whitest counties of the country (pretty much without out those nasty mixed race Spanish speaking immigrants from Mexico and Central America that distress Mike Kimel so much.
2. I would love to see how this study accounts for structural white supremacy, as it legally existed in this country before 1964, and which continues to exist de facto in no longer de jure since 1964. Now some immigrants through the 1st and 2nd generation were not recognized as “white,” or at least equal to AS whites, such as the Irish Catholics and German Catholics, and later the Italians, Greeks, and Poles. But usually by the3rd generation they had assimilated the English folkways of the dominate culture and reach the 1st class level.
3. Finally, the conclusion that states as follows: “… In contrast, according to the results and interpretation reported here, ancestry groups’ low socioeconomic mobility is not an indication that something is wrong, but merely that the impact of migrants’ self-selection is longer-lasting than previously thought…” is an extremely conservative statement. If I was an African-American (most whom ancestors have been here for more than 200 years and who have the lowest socio-economic scores of almost all population groups) I would wonder about the political agenda of the study.
Sherparick:
On #1, you forgot nastiest. Everyone knows civilization stopped at the Hudson River.
0n #2; already pointed out the generational thing.
On 3#; I can not dispute your comment. This too several of us have pointed out.
Good collective comments though.
My first question on reading the posted excerpted quotes was in the conclusion::
“… In contrast, according to the results and interpretation reported here, ancestry groups’ low socioeconomic mobility is not an indication that something is wrong, but merely that the impact of migrants’ self-selection is longer-lasting than previously thought…”
So I read most of the full report looking for the information in it that related to “longer lasting than previously thought” since the author is relating “something wrong” to “longer lasting than…” such that one replaces the other.
There is nothing in the report showing “longer lasting than..” any other standards or measures uses of how long intergenerational mobility takes.
Thus what the author is actually concluding is only based on his pure speculative belief that the reason intergenerational mobility among immigrants takes “more time” [e.g. lasts longer than though] is because they’re immigrants … there’s no data in his reported information that shows any differentiation among immigrant groups by race or ethnicity… he uses all as one group. .
And since the US is entirely composed only of immigrants [less the natives who survived genocides] then what the author shows is only that the groups who had to emigrate the furthest also had the higher levels of skills and education (thus greater where with all to fund a longer trip — that’s the “self selection” part of his thesis).
I haven’t done the detailed analysis of his data yet, though on a cursory analysis there’s no significant difference in the rate of intergenerational mobility improvement (education or income) between generations based on how far the immigrants had to travel or their wage/income levels in the native location before they emigrated.
My fundamental problem with his conclusion though is that prior studies have concluded something is “wrong” when an immigrant group doesn’t improve as fast as natives … that “something” being often identified as racial or ethic bias. The author simply tosses those “something’s” out and replaces them with “it takes longer”… BUT the ignores the WHY it takes longer. He doesn’t show how much longer it takes so how can he draw a conclusion that “it takes longer”?
The author of the report bases his hypothesis on Gregory Clark’s 2014 book, “The Son Also Rises”, which if you read about it, Clark’s hypothesis is that genes (e.g. intelligence) are the major component of that which cause intergenerational mobility to be greater or lesser among immigrant groups in the US. He provided no evidence to support his conclusion though and even stated emphatically that
“controversial conclusions he draws are his alone”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Son_Also_Rises_(book)
.
So what Mr. Kimel posted is a direct extension of Clark’s unsubstantiated hypothesis. Another of the racial differences are due to inherited intelligence by race.
Mr. Kimel is highly selective in what he posts to further his own belief system. I have mentioned this in some of my past comments on Mr. Kimel’s posted content and his inferences from them.
Spencer,
The data Ruist has doesn’t go back that far, but I would guess he would expect there to be differences in the socieonomic direction of the children and grandcihildren of the convicts brought over here and that of the kids of, say, those who arrived more under their own steam for other reasons (e.g., the Mayflower crowd). I imagine Gregory Clark, of The Son Also Rises, might reach a similar conclusion.
Sherparick,
You haven’t been reading the blog long. How many times have I mentioned that I spent a third of my life in South America, and, if money were no object, would live in Rio? Buenos Aires would work too if you want to bring up the difference between Spanish and Portuguese. And I have mentioned a few times before that I am half Argentine by birth. I guess if I wanted it, I could get Argentine citizenship.
Longtooth,
I’ve linked to this already. Those who got genocided when the Europeans arrived were the descendants of those who had previously genocided the first inhabitants of this fair land. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but your phrasing seems pretty condemnatory of A and not B for conduct engaged in by both groups.
Longtooth,
I guess you can misinterpret anything. There’s a link to a previous post of mine in the OP. Follow it. I’m sure you remember that post. There is data galore in it. And it doesn’t discuss race at all.
One thought that might also be reflected is the willingness to move in search of better opportunities. Some of my ancestors that came over to Ma in 1630 moved successivly to Ct, NJ, Oh, Ia and then IN while relatives went all the way to Wa. Others came in the 19th century and essentially stayed at the place they came to for several generations. Of course back then moving very far meant at best letter communication. So one other metric might be the willingness to move (in at least the case of the move to IA to near wilderness.)
Lyle:
Know that path pretty well. Like many others we are related to the Mayflower crowd. My fastidious aunts kept the family history. Witchcraft Mark and some how we hooked up with the Marshalls through marriage. John is a distant relation. We are not known for being quiet observers although I am not known for what I say and much better known for what I do not say.
Lyle,
Bingo. And the point Ruist is making is that at one point, most immigrant families moved voluntarily. Yes, there were slaves and convicts , but in general, most immigrants arrive under their own volition. (Even according to Henry Louis Gates, the total number of slaves brought to the US was 388k, whereas Census figures indicate there are 2.1 million African immigrants in the US right now.)
But… over time, it gets easier to migrate. So the self-selection process has become less selective.
Sherparick,
I reread your comment. I missed this the first time:
There’s a link to Ruist’s paper. I’m guessing Ruist is a German author at a German University. He probably doesn’t have all that much of an axe to grind when it comes to migration to the US. But like a lot of people, he works with the data that is available.
Mr. Kimel,
I sounds like you haven’t even read the paper you cite from Ruiste. Since you stated that :
” I’m guessing Ruist is a German author at a German University.”
But in the paper, right under the title on the 1st page it clearly states:
“Joakim Ruist*
University of Gothenburg
joakim.ruist@economics.gu.se”
It’s very prominent in fact.
Ruist is not a professor, assistant professor, Phd, or Phd candidate. His sole “credential” is “researcher”, what-ever that means… probably IMO something like what Mr. Kimel thinks he is.
https://sites.google.com/site/joakimruist/
From the university dept of econ page on Ruist
http://economics.handels.gu.se/english/about-us/staff?userId=xruijo
Also, more evidence that Mr. Kimel cited this paper and the quotes from a source he found other than the original paper source is pretty clear since he didn’t know the author was from Sweden, was working at a Swedish university as a “researcher” with no doctorate or even doctoral candidate status, prof or assistant prof or even just “teacher”.
Normally, at least I would think that “normally” one that cites research at least looks at the credentials of the author before deciding the research has any merit on its own. As near as I can tell the paper Mr. Kimel cites isn’t even published in any peer reviewed journal. and I’ve looked for it. It’s only published as a .pdf with no other publication sources listed or that I can find. S I’m quitey suspicious of Mr. Kimel just “stumbling across” this paper. Ruist doesn’t even cite it as a publication at the University in his “publications” page in 2017 (or any other year). … see the Univ. page link above.
In fact the only place the paper is published is as the pdf from the conference in Bonn in May 2017: IZA Institute of Labor Economics 14th Annual Migration Meeting…
http://conference.iza.org/conference_files/AMM_2017/viewProgram?conf_id=3004
One of the two organizers of which is Bjoras whom Ruist cites as a reference in his paper. .
– Borjas has published a number of studies that show that immigration adversely affects low-skilled natives, a proposition that is debated among economists.
– In August 2017, the Trump administration, while defending its plan to reduce levels of legal immigration to the United States by 50%, cited Borjas’ research on the Mariel boatlift as evidence that low-skilled immigration reduced wages for American workers.[15][16] Fact-checkers noted that Borjas’ research on the Mariel boatlift was rebutted by other researchers and has received “major criticisms”.
– The Miami Herald describes him as “avowed conservative”[ According to the Miami Herald, Borjas “supports increased restrictions on immigration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_J._Borjas#Controversy
– Borjas was the primary advisor to Jason Richwine, whose Harvard dissertation concluded that Latino immigrants to the U.S. are and will remain less intelligent than “native whites.
– In 2017, an analysis of Borjas’ study on the effects of the Mariel boatlift concluded that Borjas’ findings “may simply be spurious” and that his theory of the economic impact of the boatlift “doesn’t fit the evidence.”[11] A number of other studies concluded the opposite of what Borjas’ study had found.[12] Borjas denied that he had misconstrued the data, calling the controversy “fake news.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_J._Borjas
The Ruist paper is therefore if of highly questionable content… and I’ve already said his conclusions aren’t supported an iota by anything in is paper. Highly indicative of an opinion built on beliefs hiding behind a pseudo-scientific paper with “math” and “statistics”.
Longtooth,
Sounds like you don’t recognize sarcasm. Why do you think I “guessed” he was a German at a German university?
Edit… based on your comment that I missed, I probably should read further. But I wasn’t judging the messenger, just the message.
Longtooth,
1. If your criticism of Borjas is that he’s a conservative, we’re in trouble. I view myself as slightly left of center, in general, but I debate things based on the merits of arguments. A conservative, to the best of my knowledge, is still part of the body politic. Also, he mentioned several times in public that he is a conservative because he grew up in Cuba and saw what was being done in the name of the left. Part of why I lean a bit left is that I grew up in South America and I saw what was being done in the name of the right. Just as the Cuban regime claims to be “socialist” the juntas in the country with which I had the most familiarity claimed to be “anti-communist.”
2. I have been writing for more than 10 years. I may have mentioned doing research once or twice, but I am pretty sure I never mentioned it in the context of anything I write about. It is always possible I did, but it should be obvious it isn’t I’m going around claiming about myself.
3. More on the importance of judging the work according to its own merit, and not that of who came up with it: as I recall, Borjas, Card, and just about everyone involved in the debate on the academic side who base their arguments on the Marielitos “natural experiment” seem to ignore the Mastodon in the room: the massive cocaine boom going on in Miami at the time. Heck, to my knowledge, the first person to repeatedly bring it up was the alt-right Steve Sailer. One doesn’t have to agree with Sailer on much, or even to have watched the movie Scarface, or heard of the tv show Miami Vice, to noodle out that you can’t look at the Miami economy at the time without accounting for that particular driver. Its no different than watching the news today and concluding that media attention is what affected productivity in Houston over the past week or so.