International transferability of immigrants’ human capital

This paper uses the approach in the under/over education literature to analyze the extent of matching of educational level to occupational attainment among adult native born and foreign born men in the US, using the 2000 Census. Overeducation is found to be more common among recent labor market entr...

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Main Authors: Chiswick, B., Miller, Paul
Format: Journal Article
Published: Pergamon 2009
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/47200
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author Chiswick, B.
Miller, Paul
author_facet Chiswick, B.
Miller, Paul
author_sort Chiswick, B.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description This paper uses the approach in the under/over education literature to analyze the extent of matching of educational level to occupational attainment among adult native born and foreign born men in the US, using the 2000 Census. Overeducation is found to be more common among recent labor market entrants, while undereducation is more likely among older workers. Among immigrants, greater pre-immigration labor market experience is associated with poorer job matches, presumably due to the less-than-perfect international transferability of foreign experience. A longer duration in the US, however, is associated with a lower probability of being overeducated and a greater probability of being undereducated. This is consistent with immigrants being favorably selected for occupational advancement but this effect becomes realized only after overcoming the disadvantages of the less-than-perfect international transferability of their pre-immigration skills.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-472002017-09-13T14:13:45Z International transferability of immigrants’ human capital Chiswick, B. Miller, Paul Education Skill transferability Immigrants Occupational attainment This paper uses the approach in the under/over education literature to analyze the extent of matching of educational level to occupational attainment among adult native born and foreign born men in the US, using the 2000 Census. Overeducation is found to be more common among recent labor market entrants, while undereducation is more likely among older workers. Among immigrants, greater pre-immigration labor market experience is associated with poorer job matches, presumably due to the less-than-perfect international transferability of foreign experience. A longer duration in the US, however, is associated with a lower probability of being overeducated and a greater probability of being undereducated. This is consistent with immigrants being favorably selected for occupational advancement but this effect becomes realized only after overcoming the disadvantages of the less-than-perfect international transferability of their pre-immigration skills. 2009 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/47200 10.1016/j.econedurev.2008.07.002 Pergamon restricted
spellingShingle Education
Skill transferability
Immigrants
Occupational attainment
Chiswick, B.
Miller, Paul
International transferability of immigrants’ human capital
title International transferability of immigrants’ human capital
title_full International transferability of immigrants’ human capital
title_fullStr International transferability of immigrants’ human capital
title_full_unstemmed International transferability of immigrants’ human capital
title_short International transferability of immigrants’ human capital
title_sort international transferability of immigrants’ human capital
topic Education
Skill transferability
Immigrants
Occupational attainment
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/47200