Immigrant Earnings in the Time Series (1950-2004)

This paper seeks to document how immigrant earnings for a given country evolve over time and identify evidence from immigration literature that could explain any observable trends. By analyzing birth cohorts of immigrants from IPUMS Microsamples and the American Community Survey, I �find that immigrant earnings have been increasing since 1950 with each cohort, earning 0.95% higher wages per year relative to natives. I also attempt to rationalize the presence this cohort trend through the use of the human capital proxies of educational attainment and literacy rates. They do not seem to account for the presence of the cohort eff�ect. Moreover, I observe that as low income countries grow in per capita income, the relative earnings of their immigrants rise. Finally, I �find that exposure to their source country contributes to the presence of stronger cohort e�ffects by studying the children of immigrants