Heather Antecol

Unhealthy Assimilation: Why Do Immigrants Converge to American Health Status Levels?

It is well documented that immigrants are in better health upon arrival in the United States than their American counterparts but that this health advantage erodes over time. We study the potential determinants of this “healthy immigrant effect,” with a particular focus on the tendency of immigrants to converge to unhealthy American BMI levels. Using data from the National Health Interview Survey, we find that average female and male immigrants enter the United States with BMIs that are approximately two and five percentage points lower than native-born women and men, respectively. Consistent with the declining health status of immigrants the longer they remain in the United States, we also find that female immigrants almost completely converge to American BMIs within 10 years of arrival, and men close a third of the gap within 15 years.

An Examination of Cross-Country Differences in the Gender Gap in Labor Force Participation Rates

Abstract Using evidence on variation in the gender gap in labor force participation rates (LFPR) across home country groups in the United States, this paper analyzes cross-country differences in these gaps. The empirical evidence reveals that for first generation immigrants, over half of the overall variation in the gender gap in LFPR is attributable to home country LFPR. This suggests that there exists a permanent, portable factor, i.e., culture, that is not captured by observed human capital measures, that affects outcomes. The smaller role of home country LFPR for second-and-higher generation immigrants, provides evidence of cultural assimilation as well.

The Sexual Orientation Wage Gap: The Role of Occupational Sorting and Human Capital

Using data from the 2000 U.S. Census, the authors explore two alternative explanations for the sexual orientation wage gap: occupational sorting, and human capital differences. They find that lesbian women earned more than heterosexual women irrespective of marital status, while gay men earned less than their married heterosexual counterparts but more than their cohabitating heterosexual counterparts. Results of a Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition indicate that the relative wage advantages observed for some groups of lesbians and gay men were mainly owing to greater levels of human capital accumulation (particularly education), while occupational sorting had little or no influence. The relative wage penalties that were observed in other cases, however, cannot be attributed either to differences in occupational sorting or to human capital. An analysis employing a DiNardo, Fortin, and Lemieux decomposition, which allows for variation in the wage gap at different points along the wage distribution, broadly confirms these results.

Assimilation via prices or quantities? Sources of immigrant earnings growth in Australia, Canada and the United States

Using 1980/81 and 1990/91 census data from Australia, Canada, and the United States, we estimate the effects of time in the destination country on male immigrants’ wages, employment, and earnings. We find that total earnings assimilation is greatest in the United States and least in Australia. Employment assimilation explains all of the earnings progress experienced by Australian immigrants, whereas wage assimilation plays the dominant role in the United States, and Canada falls in between. We argue that relatively inflexible wages and generous unemployment insurance in countries like Australia may cause assimilation to occur along the quantity rather than the price dimension.

The Racial Wage Gap: The Importance of Labor Force Attachment Differences across Black, Mexican, and White Men.

Labor market attachment differs significantly across young black, Mexican, and white men. Although it has long been agreed that potential experience is a poor proxy for actual experience for women, many view it as an acceptable approximation for men. Using the NLSY, this paper documents the substantial difference between potential and actual experience for both black and Mexican men. We show that the fraction of the black/ white and Mexican/white wage gaps that are explained by differences in potential experience are quite different from the fraction of the racial wage gaps that are explained by actual (real) experience differences.

Why Is There Interethnic Variation in the Gender Wage Gap?: The Role of Cultural Factors

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LABOR SUPPLY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MARRIED HETEROSEXUAL WOMEN AND PARTNERED LESBIANS: A SEMI-PARAMETRIC DECOMPOSITION APPROACH

Using 2000 U.S. Census data we illustrate the importance of accounting for household specialization in lesbian couples when examining labor supply differences between heterosexual married and partnered lesbian women. Specifically, we find the labor supply gap is substantially larger between married women and partnered lesbian women who specialize in market production (primary earners) than between married women and partnered lesbian women who specialize in household production (secondary earners). Applying a semi‐parametric decomposition approach we show that controlling for children significantly reduces the gap between married women and secondary lesbian earners both in terms of the decision to remain attached to the labor market (the extensive margin) and annual hours of work conditional on working (the intensive margin). Further, the effect of controlling for children primarily reduces the percentage of secondary lesbian earners working extremely high annual hours.

Gender as an Impediment to Labor Market Success: Why Do Young Women Report Greater Harm?

Compared to older women, young female job seekers are more than three times as likely to report that their ability to find a good new job is compromised by their gender. This phenomenon cannot be statistically attributed to observed personal or job characteristics, or to any “objective” measure of discrimination. Further, womens reports of gender‐induced advantage, and mens reports of gender‐induced harm, are also more prevalent among the young. A possible interpretation of all these patterns is that young people are more likely to interpret a given departure from gender‐neutral treatment as causally affected by their gender.

THE RELATIVE EARNINGS OF YOUNG MEXICAN, BLACK, AND WHITE WOMEN

This analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth indicates that young Mexican women and young black women earned, respectively, 9.5% and 13.2% less than young white women in 1994. Differences in education appear to be the most important explanation for the Mexican-white wage gap, whereas differences in labor force attachment are the most important determinant of the black-white wage gap. The authors show that accounting for actual labor market experience, rather than simply imputing experience based on years since leaving school, is crucially important in such analyses.

The Effect of Teacher Gender on Student Achievement in Primary School

Using data from a randomized experiment, we find that having a female teacher lowers the math test scores of female primary school students in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Moreover, we do not find any effect of having a female teacher on male students’ test scores (math or reading) or female students’ reading test scores, which seems to rule out explanations pertaining to the unobserved quality differences between male and female teachers. Finally, this negative effect seems to persist only for female students who were assigned to a female teacher with a limited math background.