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The short‐term effects of international immigration such as immediate unemployment and lowered occupational status, have been studied extensively (eg. Boyd, et al, 1980; Hartman, 1974; Matras, et al, 1976). International migration has been shown to have serious negative effects on occupational and educational achievement (Hartman and Eilon, 1973; Eilon, 1976; Hartman, 1981). For example the total number of years of education of immigrants under certain conditions is lower than their native counterparts, and may even be lower than the educational attainment expected from the person in his country of origin. Occupational achievement was found to be lowered immediately after immigration, and although it was found that some accelerated regain occurs for up to 10 years in the country, the migrant rarely attains the same achievements as his native counterparts (Eilon, 1976). Such consequences of immigration are bound to have long‐term implications for labour force participation throughout the working life and subsequent retirement provisions.

This paper examines how changes in immigration policy levers actually affect the skill characteristics of immigrant arrivals using a unique Canadian immigrant landings database. The paper identifies some hypotheses on the possible effects on immigrant skill characteristics of the total immigration rate, the point system weights and immigrant class weights. The “skill” characteristics examined are level of education, age, and fluency in either English or French. Regressions are used to test the hypotheses from Canadian landings data for 1980–2001. It is found that (i) the larger the inflow rate of immigrants the lower the average skill level of the arrivals, (ii) increasing the proportion of skill-evaluated immigrants raises average skill levels, and (iii) increasing point system weights on a specific skill dimension indeed has the intended effect of raising average skill levels in this dimension among arriving principal applicants.

Do the living arrangements of immigrant elderly differ significantly from those for non‐immigrant elderly? If so, are differences between immigrants and non‐immigrants due to population composition or immigration‐based cultural preferences? To answer these questions this research examines the living arrangements of Non‐Hispanic White, Hispanic, and Asian elderly using data from the 1990 Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS). The standardization and multinomial logistic regression results indicate that within each of the racial/ethnic groups immigrants, particularly those aged sixty or older upon arrival, are more likely to live in extended family arrangements and less likely to live independently than elderly non‐immigrants. Furthermore, these differences between immigrants and non‐immigrants are not due to differences in population composition, economic resources, functional limitations, or acculturation. The results suggest that immigration policies are influencing these observed living arrangement differences. The impact of increasing diversity among the older population and potential changes in government policy on the distribution of future elderly living arrangements is discussed.

The educational and labor market outcomes of the first, first-and-a-half (1.5), second, and third generations of immigrants to the United States (US) and Canada are compared. These countries’ immigration policies have diverged on important dimensions since the 1960s, resulting in large differences in immigrant source country distributions and a much larger emphasis on skill requirements in Canada, making for interesting comparisons. Of particular note is the educational attainment of US immigrants which is currently lower than that in Canada and is expected to influence future second generations causing an existing education gap to grow. This will likely in turn influence earnings where, controlling only for age, the current US second generation has earnings comparable to those of the third generation, whereas the Canadian second generation has higher earnings. Importantly, the role of, and returns to, observable characteristics are significantly different between the US and Canada. Observable characteristics explain little of the difference in earnings outcomes across generations in the US but have remarkable explanatory power in Canada. Controlling for a wide array of characteristics, especially education, has little effect on the US second generation's earnings premium, but causes the Canadian premium to become negative relative to the Canadian third generation. The Canadian 1.5 and second generations’ educational advantage is of benefit in the labor market, but does not receive the same rate of return as it does for the third generation causing a very sizable gap between the current good observed outcomes, and the even better outcomes that would be expected if the 1.5 and second generation received the same rate of return to their characteristics as the third generation. Why the US differs likely follows from a combination of its lower immigration rate, its different selection mechanism, and its settlement policies and practices.

Past studies of the empirical relationship between immigration and crime during the first major wave of immigration have focused on violent crime in cities and have relied on data with serious limitations regarding nativity information. We analyze administrative data from Pennsylvania prisons, with high-quality information on nativity and demographic characteristics. The latter allow us to construct incarceration rates for detailed population groups using U.S. Census data. The raw gap in incarceration rates for the foreign and native born is large, in accord with the extremely high concern at the time about immigrant criminality. But adjusting for age and gender greatly narrows that observed gap. Particularly striking are the urban/rural differences. Immigrants were concentrated in large cities where reported crime rates were higher. However, within rural counties, the foreign born had much higher incarceration rates than the native born. The interaction of nativity with urban residence explains much of the observed aggregate differentials in incarceration rates. Finally, we find that the foreign born, especially the Irish, consistently have higher incarceration rates for violent crimes, but from 1850 to 1860 the natives largely closed the gap with the foreign born for property offenses.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the gap in reading literacy of young immigrant children in Italy and examine if this gap is significantly influenced by pupils’ length of stay in Italy and country of origin.

The author estimate a standard education production function where student test performance in language is modelled as a function of the native vs immigrant first- and second-generation status and a set of additional variables that control for students, schools and catchment area characteristics. In the analysis the author use the 2010-2011 school-year data for four stages of schooling: second and fifth grade/year of primary school, sixth grade of lower secondary school and tenth grade upper secondary school.

Results confirm the presence of a significant gap between natives and immigrants students in school outcomes for all grades, with first-generation immigrants showing the largest gap. Further, comparing the results between first- and second-generation immigrant students suggests that the average significant gap observed in the first generation is mainly due to the negative performance of immigrant children newly arrived in Italy. That is, for first-generation students, closing the gap with second-generation ones seems to be, for the most part, a matter of time. At the same time, the gap between natives and second-generation immigrants remains significant in all grades. Finally, when the author compare the results across the different years, it turns out that interventions at younger ages are likely to be more effective.

Despite the availability of a rich set of controls, endogeneity issues may play a role in the analysis.

Results suggest that if the foreign children’s late arrival is the result of national migration policies on family reunification, the authorities need to carefully compare the possible benefit of delaying immigrant family reunification against the possible costs of students’ lower school performance.

Among economist, only few recent studies address the important question of whether the age at arrival and the length of stay in the host country matters for immigrants’ educational achievements. Moreover, while according to PISA 2009 results, Italy has some of the largest native-immigrant school performance gaps among OECD countries there are no studies that investigate this issue.

One in nine people between the ages of 18 and 64 in the US, and every second foreign-born person in this age bracket, speak Spanish at home. And whereas around 80 percent of adult immigrants in the US from non-English-speaking countries other than Mexico are proficient in English, only about 50 percent of adult immigrants from Mexico are proficient. The use of a language other than English at home, and proficiency in English, are both analyzed in this paper using economic models and data on adult males from the 2000 US Census. The results demonstrate the importance of immigrants’ educational attainment, their age at migration, and years spent in the US to their language skills. The immigrants’ mother tongue is also shown to affect their English proficiency; immigrants with a mother tongue more distant from English being less likely to be proficient. Finally, immigrants living in ethnic–linguistic enclaves have lesser proficiency in English than immigrants who live in predominately English-speaking areas of the US. The results for females are generally very similar to those for males. The findings from an ordered probit approach to estimation are similar to the findings from a binary probit model, and the conclusions drawn from the analyses mirror those in studies based on the 1980 and 1990 US Censuses. Thus, the model of language skills presented appears to be remarkably robust across time and estimation techniques, and between the genders.

Age at migration is commonly utilized as a proxy measure for assimilation in health behavior research. We reconsider this approach by examining the role of continued connection with places of origin on alcohol use, an important marker of health behavior and overall population health. Cross-border connections may buffer the association between earlier age at migration and alcohol use by providing an alternative channel of influence for behavioral norms. Alternatively, a stress and coping perspective on cross-border ties suggests potentially countervailing adverse impacts of these connections on alcohol use. We used data from the 2002/2003 National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS) (n = 1,641/1,630 Asian and Latino origin respondents, respectively). We first estimated the association between age at migration (child/adolescent versus adult migrant) and any past-year alcohol use. We subsequently tested the interaction between age at migration and two measures of cross-border connections. All models were stratified by region of origin and gender. For Latin American-origin women, cross-border ties were associated with increased risk of past-year alcohol use among those who migrated early in life. In contrast, Asian-origin men and women who migrated as adults and had contact with family and friends abroad had the lowest predicted probabilities of past-year alcohol use. The results among Asians support the idea that cross-border ties may be alternative influences on health behavior outcomes, particularly for adult migrants. Overall, we find qualified support for both transnational and assimilationist perspectives on alcohol use behaviors among US immigrants – as well as the interaction between these two frameworks. The joint influences of cross-border ties and age at migration were observed primarily for immigrant women, and not always in expected directions. We nevertheless urge future research to consider both US and country of origin influences on a wider range of health and health behavior outcomes for immigrants, as well as the potential intersection between US and cross-border connections.

The increased number of Eastern European immigrants provides many opportunities to work with these immigrants and issues related to immigration. The purpose of this article is to examine Eastern European immigrants' adaptation patterns and provide recommendations for family therapy working with the group.

Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 120 Eastern European immigrants. Data analysis was conducted using constant comparisons.

Common immigration experiences illustrating the need for services have been identified, along with barriers that might prevent the use of social services. The results indicate similarities and differences among the different groups regarding their immigration experience and adaptation to the host society.

Recommendations for overcoming the service‐use barriers and conducting family therapy with these immigrants are provided.

The purpose of this paper is to test a hypothesized structure of interrelations between pre-migration dispositional factors (cultural identity and optimism/pessimism) and immigration-related experiences (level of integration and perceived discrimination) in association with mental and physical components of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in a sample of Jewish people from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) who immigrated to Germany.

A questionnaire in Russian, including items about the immigration background, level of integration, perceived discrimination as well as cultural identity, dispositional optimism/pessimism (Life Orientation Test-R) and HRQoL (SF-12) was handed out to Jewish immigrants from the FSU living in Germany. The data of 153 participants were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Whereas no significant associations between Jewish identity and HRQoL could be found, both a positive association between optimism and level of integration with a link to physical and mental health, and an inverse relation between optimism and perceived discrimination with a link to mental health, were observed. Opposite associations were found for pessimism.

The results replicate prior research findings on Jews from the FSU living in Israel and the USA and suggest more detailed assessment methods for further investigations on integration processes and cultural identity in the selected group of immigrants. Additionally, HRQoL is significantly lower in the Jewish sample than in the general population. These findings underline the need for a better integration policy, especially for Jewish people from the FSU.