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Immigrants' demand for informal and formal education: evidence from US time use data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2021

Nicola Daniele Coniglio Open the ORCID record for Nicola Daniele Coniglio [Opens in a new window] ,
Rezart Hoxhaj  and
Hubert Jayet
Nicola Daniele Coniglio*
Affiliation:
Economics and Finance, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy
Rezart Hoxhaj
Affiliation:
Economics, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Hubert Jayet
Affiliation:
Université de Lille, Lille, France
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: nicoladaniele.coniglio@uniba.it
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Abstract

This paper contributes to the migration literature studying the time devoted to educational activities. It uses US time-diary surveys to study the allocation of time to informal as well as formal learning and educational activities by immigrants and natives. We develop a simple theoretical framework, which highlights the different constraints/opportunity costs faced by immigrants as compared with natives. Consistently with our theoretical model, the estimates show that immigrants are more likely to engage in informal and formal education and conditional on participation, they allocate more time to these activities. We find that the main drivers are economic incentives, mostly in the early phase of working life, and that the differences between natives and immigrants persist across generations. We also find that differences between immigrants and natives are generally larger in informal education than in formal education. The investment in informal and formal learning and educational activities is likely to boost immigrants' human and social capital and contribute to their socio-economic integration.

Keywords

Human capitalimmigrantsinformal educationtime useUS

JEL classification

I20: General J22: Time Allocation and Labor Supply J24: Human Capital • Skills • Occupational Choice • Labor Productivity J15: Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants • Non-labor Discrimination
Type
Research Paper
Information
Journal of Demographic Economics , Volume 88 , Issue 4 , December 2022 , pp. 473 - 501
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain 2021

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