A Historical Note on the Assimilation Rates of Foreign-Born Women in the U.S

With historical, longitudinal data on individuals, we track the earnings of immigrant and U.S.- born women. By following the same individuals we avoid biases in earnings-growth estimates caused by compositional changes in the cohorts that are followed. Our results contradict key predictions of the Family Investment Hypothesis, shed light on its genesis, and inform further explorations. Challenging the perception that the quality of U.S. immigrants fell after the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, we find that post-1970 immigrant women have high earnings growth, resembling a previous nonparametric analysis of immigrant men