Immigration and Inequality in the Next Generation
Working Paper 33961
DOI 10.3386/w33961
Issue Date
We estimate the causal impacts of immigration to U.S. cities on the intergenerational economic mobility of children of U.S.-born parents. Immigration raises the educational attainment and earnings among individuals who grew up in poorer households and reduces the earnings, educational attainment, and employment among those who grew up in more affluent households. On net, immigration diminishes the link between parents' and their children's economic outcomes in the receiving population, and thus increases intergenerational mobility. The increase in mobility is strikingly similar in models estimated across cities and in within-city models that control for the trajectories of immigrant destinations.