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Whether immigrants advance in labor markets during their lifetime
relative to natives is a fundamental question in the economics of
immigration. We examine linked census records for five cohorts,
spanning 1850–1940, when immigration to the United States was at
its peak. We find a U-shaped pattern of assimilation: immigrants
were “catching up” to natives in the early and later cohorts, but not
in between. This change was not due to shifts in immigrants’ source
countries. Instead, it was rooted in men’s early-career occupations,
which we associate with structural change, strengthening
complementarities, and large immigration waves in the 1840s and
1900s.
