The solution of the immigrant paradox: aspirations and expectations of children of migrants

E-print/Working paper (2020)

In this paper, we push forward the hypothesis that misalignment between expectations and aspirations crucially affects the educational outcomes of young adults. Using AddHealth, a dataset of 20,774 <br ... [more ▼]

In this paper, we push forward the hypothesis that misalignment between expectations and aspirations crucially affects the educational outcomes of young adults. Using AddHealth, a dataset of 20,774 <br />adolescents between the grades 7-12, we show that the difference in school performance between migrant children and natives lies within the aspirations and expectations that migrant children form. More <br />specifically, we find that positive misalignment between aspirations and expectations is a driving force <br />for higher effort and better education outcomes of immigrant teenagers in the USA. This force resolves <br />the well-known immigrant paradox. Furthermore, this result is specific to migrant children and does not <br />hold for second-generation migrant pupils. [less ▲]