Doctoral Dissertation Research: Inequalities and Skills of Immigrants in the U.S., Canada, and Australia

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For countries with large immigrant populations such as the United States, Canada, and Australia, the skills of immigrants constitute an important part of national human resources. However, little is known about what determines 1) the skills immigrants bring to their host country, and 2) how well immigrants perform in the new labor markets they enter. Existing immigration studies have demonstrated that the level of development and inequality in the country-of-origin influences immigrants' skills and socioeconomic outcomes, but have given little attention to local social environments and the nature of immigrant networks between the source and host countries. This project examines how these local characteristics and immigrant networks affect the labor market skills and economic success of immigrants. The project uses decennial census data collected by government agencies of three destination countries - the United States, Canada, and Australia. It then links these data to various national level indicators gathered from publications of the United Nations and other international organizations. The new and more comprehensive data combine country-of-origin attributes with characteristics of the immigrants' settlement areas. The analyses then estimate the effects of human capital, social capital, and macro social factors on immigrant outcomes for groups that differ by national origin and destination.