UCLA International Institute

Proponents of restrictive immigration policies often claim that families arriving with fewer skills and resources will be less socially mobile. This claim is challenging to test as pre-migration characteristics are not easily separated from post-migration experiences. This article uses unique multigenerational data on Irish Americans in the early twentieth century, before and after migration, to study how source country background and settlement context affect the occupational and schooling attainment of the children of immigrants. These results show modest effects of pre-migration origins on second generation outcomes. The reception context, in contrast, as it relates to educational acquisition and labor market opportunity appears to be more important for intergenerational economic progress. These findings suggest that childhood environments may be of greater priority than the selectivity of immigration for second generation attainment.