The United States and Canada: Intergenerational social mobility among immigrants and their native-born children

Abstract

This chapter reviews the academic literature on new immigrants’ intergenerational educational and labour market integration in the United States and Canada, and presents new findings. It begins with a discussion of American and Canadian immigration history, and then addresses the intergenerational transmission of educational outcomes. Particular attention is paid to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, especially minority ethnic-group students. The discussion points to language deficiencies as a major drawback, and outlines possible reasons for the relatively slow integration of the Hispanic community into higher levels of education in the United States. The chapter then turns to labour market outcomes in both countries, examining participation rates and earnings gaps for adult immigrants, immigrants who arrived as children, the children of immigrants and, as a comparison group, children with two native-born parents.