Antecol, Heather, Peter Kuhn, and Stephen J. Trejo. 2006. “Assimilation via Prices or Quantities? Sources of Immigrant Earnings Growth in Australia, Canada, and the United States.” Journal of Human Resources 41(4): 821–840.
Using 1980/81 and 1990/91 census data from Australia, Canada, and the United States, we estimate the effects of time in the destination country on male immigrants’ wages, employment, and earnings. We find that total earnings assimilation is greatest in the United States and least in Australia. Employment assimilation explains all of the earnings progress experienced by Australian immigrants, whereas wage assimilation plays the dominant role in the United States, and Canada falls in between. We argue that relatively inflexible wages and generous unemployment insurance in countries like Australia may cause assimilation to occur along the quantity rather than the price dimension.
Heather Antecol is an associate professor of economics at Claremont McKenna College and Simon Fraser University. Peter Kuhn is a professor of economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Stephen J. Trejo is an associate professor of economics at the University of Texas, Austin. The authors thank the University of California’s Pacific Rim Research Grant program for support. Some data in this paper are only available through the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Researchers who wish to obtain these or other data may contact the authors beginning March 2007 through February 2010 from Heather Antecol, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada <hantecol@sfu.ca>