Brain Waste? Educated Immigrants in the US Labor Market

This paper investigates the occupational placement of immigrants in the US labor market using census data. We find striking differences among highly educated immigrants from different countries, even after we control for individuals' age, experience, and level of education. With some exceptions...

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Main Authors:	Mattoo, Aaditya, Neagu, Ileana Cristina, Ozden, Caglar
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	EN
Published:	2012
Subjects:	International Migration F220 Analysis of Education I210 Human Capital Skills Occupational Choice Labor Productivity J240 Geographic Labor Mobility Immigrant Workers J610
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4748

id	okr-10986-4748
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-47482021-04-23T14:02:19Z Brain Waste? Educated Immigrants in the US Labor Market Mattoo, Aaditya Neagu, Ileana Cristina Ozden, Caglar International Migration F220 Analysis of Education I210 Human Capital Skills Occupational Choice Labor Productivity J240 Geographic Labor Mobility Immigrant Workers J610 This paper investigates the occupational placement of immigrants in the US labor market using census data. We find striking differences among highly educated immigrants from different countries, even after we control for individuals' age, experience, and level of education. With some exceptions, educated immigrants from Latin American and Eastern European countries are more likely to end up in unskilled jobs than immigrants from Asia and industrial countries. A large part of the variation can be explained by attributes of the country of origin that influence the quality of human capital, such as expenditure on tertiary education and the use of English as a medium of instruction. These findings suggest that "underplaced" migrants suffer primarily from low (or poorly transferable) skills rather than skill underutilization. The selection effects of US immigration policy also play an important role in explaining cross-country variation. The observed under-placement of educated migrants might be alleviated if home and host countries cooperate by sharing information on labor market conditions and work toward the recognition of qualifications. 2012-03-30T07:29:32Z 2012-03-30T07:29:32Z 2008 Journal Article Journal of Development Economics 03043878 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4748 EN http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Journal Article United States
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	EN
topic	International Migration F220 Analysis of Education I210 Human Capital Skills Occupational Choice Labor Productivity J240 Geographic Labor Mobility Immigrant Workers J610
spellingShingle	International Migration F220 Analysis of Education I210 Human Capital Skills Occupational Choice Labor Productivity J240 Geographic Labor Mobility Immigrant Workers J610 Mattoo, Aaditya Neagu, Ileana Cristina Ozden, Caglar Brain Waste? Educated Immigrants in the US Labor Market
geographic_facet	United States
relation	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo
description	This paper investigates the occupational placement of immigrants in the US labor market using census data. We find striking differences among highly educated immigrants from different countries, even after we control for individuals' age, experience, and level of education. With some exceptions, educated immigrants from Latin American and Eastern European countries are more likely to end up in unskilled jobs than immigrants from Asia and industrial countries. A large part of the variation can be explained by attributes of the country of origin that influence the quality of human capital, such as expenditure on tertiary education and the use of English as a medium of instruction. These findings suggest that "underplaced" migrants suffer primarily from low (or poorly transferable) skills rather than skill underutilization. The selection effects of US immigration policy also play an important role in explaining cross-country variation. The observed under-placement of educated migrants might be alleviated if home and host countries cooperate by sharing information on labor market conditions and work toward the recognition of qualifications.
format	Journal Article
author	Mattoo, Aaditya Neagu, Ileana Cristina Ozden, Caglar
author_facet	Mattoo, Aaditya Neagu, Ileana Cristina Ozden, Caglar
author_sort	Mattoo, Aaditya
title	Brain Waste? Educated Immigrants in the US Labor Market
title_short	Brain Waste? Educated Immigrants in the US Labor Market
title_full	Brain Waste? Educated Immigrants in the US Labor Market
title_fullStr	Brain Waste? Educated Immigrants in the US Labor Market
title_full_unstemmed	Brain Waste? Educated Immigrants in the US Labor Market
title_sort	brain waste? educated immigrants in the us labor market
publishDate	2012
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4748
_version_	1764392610622865408

Brain Waste? Educated Immigrants in the US Labor Market

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