Convergence Between Black Immigrants and Black Natives Across ...

with natives, possibly opening themselves up to discrimination. A confounding factor is the well-established
fact that there is a earnings penalty for immigrants followed by a rise in earnings roughly proportional to the
time spent in the US. In order to avoid dealing with the earnings penalty, the regressions control for time
spent in the US and only focus on immigrants who have been in the US for 10 years or more. 18
Immigrant children who get exposed to second languages during childhood generally achieve higher
second language proficiency than those beginning as adults (Krashen et al. 2011). Since many African and
Caribbean immigrants come from countries where English is one of the official languages, accent and dialect
become more important than language proficiency. Many studies link the beginning of puberty to accent
acquisition; in other words, immigrants who arrive before puberty are much more likely to sound native than
immigrants who arrive after. Since language proficiency and ease of assimilation decline monotonically with
age of immigration, these two forces suggest a negative relation between age of immigration and earnings.
Positive forces such as self-selection and motivation due to hardship forged by life experiences in the source
country are counteracting forces.
Figures 6a and 6b plot the coefficients on age of immigration by race for men and women from the
following regression:
ln(Earn)=l s + h t +
M
Â
m=1
b 1m m + b 2 Pot. Exp it + b 3 Pot Exp 2 it +
4
Â
k=1
b 4k School kit + b 5 YrsUSA it + e ismt (1)
where i denotes the individual, s denotes the state of residence, m denotes the age at arrival in the US,
t is the survey year, b 2 and b 3 capture labor market experience, the b 4k s capture different schooling levels
(high school, some college, college, more than college), and b 5 accounts for the increase in earnings due
to increased time spent in the US. Earnings are adjusted to all be in 2010 dollars. Each regression is run
separately for different races and ethnicities and the control group are natives of the same group.
For Hispanics and Asians, the immigrant premium monotonically declines with age of immigration. For
whites and blacks, however, things look different. The premium actually increases until the age of 15 and
then starts to fall but never to the level of Hispanics and Asians. This is well past the average begin of
puberty for boys (11-12) and girls (10-11). What could explain the difference between the evolution of age
of immigration effects for these groups? Perhaps, a foreign accent for blacks and to a lesser extent for whites
serves as a benefit in the labor market. Black native men have certain stereotypes attached to them that can
be a disadvantage in the labor market. Black men who arrived past the age of 11 or 12 likely sound different
than natives and thus can distinguish themselves from black natives in the labor market. The discrimination
explanation is difficult to distinguish from assimilation. Potentially, blacks who immigrate later assimilate
to a lesser degree with black natives, a group that generally falls behind whites in education and income
18 Due to small sample sizes individuals are pooled in three years bins by age of immigration. For example, individuals at the 15
year mark were between 14 and 16 years old when they arrived in the US. The figures are cut off at age 40 due to subsequent sampling
noise with small bin sizes. The sample is restricted to the 2000 census and the 2001-2011 ACS, since pre-2000, year of immigration
was only recorded in bracketed form.
10