Immigration Background and the Intergenerational Correlation in Education

34 Pages Posted: 2 Jun 2010

See all articles by Deborah A. Cobb-Clark

Deborah A. Cobb-Clark

School of Economics, University of Sydney; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Ha Trong Nguyen

Research School of Economics - Australian National University (ANU)

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: May 31, 2010

Abstract

This paper analyzes the degree of intergenerational education mobility among immigrant and native-born youth in Australia. We find that young Australians from non-English-speaking background (NESB) immigrant families have an educational advantage over their English-speaking background (ESB) immigrant and Australian-born peers. Moreover, while highly-educated Australian-born mothers and fathers transfer separate and roughly equal educational advantages to their children, outcomes for ESB (NESB) youth are most closely linked to the educational attainment of their fathers (mothers). On balance, intergenerational mobility in families with two highly-educated parents appears to be much the same for Australian-born and ESB families and is somewhat greater for NESB families. Finally, the greater importance that NESB mothers attribute to education appears to mitigate the educational penalty associated with socio-economic disadvantage.

Keywords: education, immigration, intergenerational

JEL Classification: I20, J11, J13

Suggested Citation

Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. and Nguyen, Ha Trong, Immigration Background and the Intergenerational Correlation in Education (May 31, 2010). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1618644 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1618644

Deborah A. Cobb-Clark (Contact Author)

School of Economics, University of Sydney ( email )

606 Social Sciences Bldg. (A02)
The University of Sydney
Sydney, NSW 2006
Australia
61435061387 (Phone)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Ha Trong Nguyen

Research School of Economics - Australian National University (ANU) ( email )

Economics
Building 9 - ANU
Canberra, ACT 0200
Australia

HOME PAGE: http://rse.anu.edu.au/

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
172
Abstract Views
1,827
Rank
233,480
PlumX Metrics