Native-Immigrant Gaps in Educational and School-to-Work Transitions in the Second Generation: The Role of Gender and Ethnicity

IZA Discussion Paper (Institute for the Study of Labor) No. 8752, December 2014

Stijn Baert, Frank Heiland, Sanders Korenman *

We study how native-immigrant (second generation) differences in educational trajectories and school-to-work transitions vary by gender. Using longitudinal Belgian data and adjusting for family background and educational sorting, we find that both male and female second-generation immigrants, especially Turks and Moroccans, lag natives in finishing secondary education and beginning tertiary education when schooling delay is taken into accou nt, though the female gap is larger. The same is true for residual gaps in the transition to work: native males are 30% more likely than comparable Turkish males to be employed three months after leaving school, while the corresponding female gap is 60%. I n addition, we study demographic behaviors (fertility, marriage and cohabitation) related to hypotheses that attribute educational and economic gaps to cultural differences between immigrants and natives.

* Stijn Baert, Ghent University , University of Antwerp and IZA, Frank Heiland Baruch College School of Public Affairs and CUNY Institute for Demographic Research, Sanders Korenman, Baruch College School of Public Affairs, CUNY Institute for Demographic Research and NBER.

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