How Costly is Assimilation for Immigrants? Some Intergenerational Evidence

Abstract

A large body of research has studied questions related to the speed of immigrants’ assimilation outcomes. However the process and costs of assimilation are less well understood and difficult to measure. The first aim of this paper is to quantify the well-being costs of assimilation in terms of income. The second aim is to provide some evidence on the source of these costs. One view emphasizes costs coming from, for example, learning English and how a high income market economy works, if coming to the US. Another view is that resistance to assimilation comes from the different beliefs of immigrants arising from their upbringing that may be costly to change. Our evidence supports the view that the costs of assimilation of immigrants to the US do not come from holding different economic beliefs to those of native Americans.