Ethnic and intergenerational aspects of human capital investment are explored. Levels of, and (cross-sectional) returns to, education across ethnic groups in Canada are estimated and large differences observed. For men, a positive correlation exists between ethnic group average years of education and its return. We also find large negative correlations between ethnic group average educational outcomes and the previous generation's fertility, suggesting a role for home production as a complement to formal education and supporting models of child quantity-quality trade-offs. Very slow intergenerational convergence in ethnic group level educational and labor market outcomes is also observed.

Arthur Sweetman is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Gordon Dicks is with the province of British Columbia's Ministry of Social Development and Economic Security. They thank participants at the 1998 Western Research Network on Education and Training conference at the University of British Columbia and the 1998 Canadian Economics Association annual meeting in Ottawa, as well as Don DeVoretz, Steve Trejo, and JeffSmith for comments. Funding was provided by Research on Immigration and Integration in the Metropolis, a Centre of Excellence sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors. Data used in this article can he obtained beginning June 2000 through May 2003 from Arthur Sweetman (sweetman@uvic.ca), or from Statistics Canada.

© 2002 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

US ISSN 0022-166X

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