Immigrants Self-Selection Patterns

In recent decades public and academic debates around the world have centered on the ability of immigrants to economically assimilate and integrate into their host societies. Scholars have pointed to two main interrelated determinants of immigrants’ economic assimilation, namely their patterns of self-selection (Chiswick, 1978; Borjas, 1985), and the host country’s reception context (Borjas, 1994; Portes and Rumbaut, 1990). When evaluating immigrants’ self-selection patterns and their economic assimilation, the literature focuses mainly on individual immigrants. However, theories of family migration cast doubt on the notion that immigration is an individual decision, claiming that the migration decision-making process takes place at the household level (Bielby and Bielby 1992; Mincer 1978; Massey, 1990; Massey et al., 1993, 1994; Stark, 1991). Moreover, immigrants might migrate with families or get married at their destination, and their marriage patterns have vital implications for their labor market outcomes (Meng and Gregory, 2005; Meng and Meurs, 2009; Furtado

Specifically, it focuses on the household composition in two countries each of which offers a different context of reception. Adding immigrants’ family patterns to the study of their self-selection and the effect of host countries’ characteristics enables us to examine the immigrants’ assimilation process in a broader way and to better understand their economic success at their destination. My research questions therefore are: (1) How do the assimilation patterns of immigrants’ families differ from those of individuals? (2) To what extent can the composition of household heads (spouse’s country of birth) explain the assimilation patterns of families? (3) To what extent do household assimilation processes differ by the context of