Educational attainment in the 1980's among immigrants.

Educational attainment in the 1980's among immigrants

The most important comparison is between the schooling of immigrants arriving in the 1970s and immigrants arriving during  1982-88. For the entire immigrant sample, the mean level of schooling increased from 11.2 years for the 1970-74 cohort, to 11.6 years for the 1975-79 cohort, and
to 12.2 years for those arriving during 1982-88. This increase is statistically significant. As a result, the schooling gap between the native born and the foreign born declined from 1.3 years in the 1979 CPS to 1.1 years in the 1988 CPS.
The foreign born exhibit a greater inequality of schooling than the native born not only overall, but also within region of origin and period of immigration. Except for the 1982-88 cohort of immigrants from Asia net of the three refugee countries, in nearly every instance in which the sample size for the foreign born exceeds 24, the foreign born by region of origin and period of immigration have a significantly larger inequality of schooling than do the native born. 4 This greater within region of origin and within cohort inequality is not consistent with the Borjas (1987) model of immigrant selectivity which suggests a narrower schooling inequality for immigrants, ceteris paribus. 

 The coefficient for this immigrant cohort (1982-88) is positive and statistically significant. Other things the same, the average adult male immigrant arriving during 1982 to 1988 had about one-third of a year more schooling (0.34 years) than the average adult male immigrant arriving during the late 1970s and nearly a full year more schooling (0.92 years) than those arriving in the early 1970s. This finding is consistent with the main hypothesis of this study, namely, that immigrant schooling has been increasing since its nadir in the early 197Os, other things being the same.
Thus, it appears that the data support the hypothesis of an increase in the schooling attainment of immigrants arriving during the 1980s. This result is mainly due to Eastern Hemisphere immigrants, whose latest cohort has more schooling than earlier immigrant cohorts. By contrast, the schooling of the latest cohort of Western Hemisphere immigrants has either not changed or declined compared to their counterparts who arrived during the 1970s.