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Francine D. Blau, Lawrence M. Kahn
NBER Working Paper No. 11512
Issued in August 2005
NBER Program(s): CH
ED
LS
---- Abstract -----
Using 1994-2003 CPS data, we study gender and assimilation of Mexican Americans. Source
country patterns, particularly the more traditional gender division of labor in the family in Mexico,
strongly influence the outcomes and behavior of Mexican immigrants. On arrival in the United
States, immigrant women have a higher incidence of marriage (spouse present), higher fertility, and
much lower labor supply than comparable white natives; wage differences are smaller than labor
supply differences, and smaller than comparable wage gaps for men. Immigrant women's labor
supply assimilates dramatically: the ceteris paribus immigrant shortfall is virtually eliminated after
twenty years. While men experience moderate wage assimilation, evidence is mixed for women.
Rising education in the second generation considerably reduces raw labor supply (especially for
women) and wage gaps with nonhispanic whites. Female immigrants' high marriage rates assimilate
towards comparable natives', but immigrant women and men remain more likely to be married even
after long residence. The remaining ceteris paribus marriage gap is eliminated in the second
generation. Immigrants' higher fertility does not assimilate toward the native level, and, while the
size of the Mexican American- white native fertility differential declines across generations, it is not
eliminated.
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