Parental Ethnic Identity and Educational Attainment of Second-Generation Immigrants

31 Pages Posted: 20 May 2012

See all articles by Simone Schueller

Simone Schueller

German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin)

Date Written: March 28, 2012

Abstract

A lack of cultural integration is often blamed for hindering immigrant families' economic progression. This paper is a first attempt to explore whether immigrant parents' ethnic identity affects the next generation's human capital accumulation in the host country. Empirical results based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) indicate that maternal majority as well as paternal minority identity are positively related to the educational attainment of second-generation youth - even controlling for differences in ethnicity, family background and years-since-migration. Additional tests show that the effect of maternal majority identity can be explained by mothers' German language proficiency, while the beneficial effect of fathers' minority identity is not related to language skills and thus likely to stem from paternal minority identity per se.

Keywords: Ethnic Identity, Second-Generation Immigrants, Education

JEL Classification: I21, J15, J16

Suggested Citation

Schueller, Simone, Parental Ethnic Identity and Educational Attainment of Second-Generation Immigrants (March 28, 2012). SOEPpaper No. 443, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2062231

Simone Schueller (Contact Author)

German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) ( email )

Mohrenstr. 58
Berlin
Germany

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