Volume 38, Number 3 (Summer) 2003
Trejo, Stephen J. 2003. "Intergenerational Progress of Mexican-Origin Workers in the U.S. Labor Market." Journal of Human Resources 38(3): 467-489.
Using unique Current Population Survey data from November 1979 and 1989, this paper compares the wage structure across generations of Mexican-origin men. I find that the sizable earnings advantage U.S.-born Mexican Americans enjoy over Mexican immigrants arises not just from intergenerational improvements in years of schooling and English proficiency, but also from increased returns to human capital for Mexican-origin workers who were born and educated in the United States. Progress stalls after the second generation, however, as the modest gains inhuman capital that occur between the second and third generations fail to raise the average earnings of Mexican Americans.
Stephen Trejo is an associate professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin. For advice and comments, he thanks George Borjas, Ed Funkhouser, Cordelia Reimers, Peter Skerry, Gary Solon, Joanne Spetz, and three anonymous referees. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning February 2004 through January 2007 from Stephen Trejo, Department of Economics, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712.
© 2003 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
US ISSN 0022-166X