Earnings Differences between Old and New U.S. Immigrants

Recent investigations have noted that immigrants to the United States from Asian and Latin American countries (the new national origin countries) are not faring as well economically as immigrants from European countries. This study sets forth possible reasons these patterns obtain, one of which is that immigrants from the new countries have less of the characteristics associated with higher economic attainment than immigrants from the European countries. To test this hypothesis, we take data from the 1970 Census of Population and apply a regression standardization approach in which all immigrants are assigned the compositional characteristics of a standard population. Even after their earnings have been adjusted statistically, the Asian and Latin American immigrants still earn less than immigrants from the old national origin countries.