Happily Ever After: Immigration, Natives' Marriage and Fertility

Michela  Carlana; Marco  Tabellini

Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2019

Happily Ever After: Immigration, Natives' Marriage and Fertility

by Michela Carlana and Marco Tabellini

Abstract

We study the effects of immigration on natives' marriage, fertility, and family formation across US cities between 1910 and 1930 using a shift-share design. We find that natives living in cities that received more immigrants were more likely to marry, have kids, and leave the parental house earlier. Our evidence suggests that the positive impact of immigration on native men's employment, which increased the supply of native ``marriageable men'', contributed to generate these patterns. Instead, alternative channels - changes in sex ratios, natives' cultural reactions, and economic competition for native women - are unlikely to, alone, explain our results.

Keywords: Immigration; Demography; Urban Scope; Household; Employment; History; Outcome or Result; United States;

Language: English

Format: Print

65 pages

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Citation:

Carlana, Michela, and Marco Tabellini. "Happily Ever After: Immigration, Natives' Marriage and Fertility." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-004, July 2018. (Revised November 2020. Winner of European Economic Association Young Economist Award, 2018. IZA (Institute of Labor Economics) Discussion Paper Series, No. 11467, April 2018)

This paper documents that disenfranchisement and discrimination discouraged WWII volunteer military participation of African American men, relative to Caucasian men, after the Pearl Harbor attack. The race-gap in volunteer enlistment is most pronounced in regions where discrimination was particularly severe. There is no gap in draft enlistment anywhere. Consistent with the notion that disenfranchisement and discrimination discourage military participation, we document that forcibly interred Japanese Americans were much less likely to serve in the U.S. military than those not interred.

Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2020

The Seeds of Ideology: Historical Immigration and Political Preferences in the United States

Paola Giuliano and Marco Tabellini

We test the relationship between historical immigration to the U.S. and political ideology today. We hypothesize that European immigrants brought with them their preferences for the welfare state, and that this had a long-lasting effect on the political ideology of U.S. born individuals. Our analysis proceeds in three steps. First, we document that the historical presence of European immigrants is associated with a more liberal political ideology and with stronger preferences for redistribution among U.S. born individuals today. Next, we show that this correlation is not explained by the characteristics of the counties where immigrants settled or other specific, socioeconomic immigrants' traits. Finally, we provide evidence that our findings are driven by immigrants who had been more exposed to social-welfare reforms in their country of origin. Consistent with a mechanism of transmission from immigrants to natives, results are stronger when inter-group contact, measured with intermarriage and residential integration, was higher. Our findings also indicate that immigrants influenced American political ideology during one of the largest episodes of redistribution in U.S. history—the New Deal—and that such effects persisted after the initial shock.

Keywords: political ideology; Immigration; History; Values and Beliefs; Welfare or Wellbeing; United States;

Citation:

Giuliano, Paola, and Marco Tabellini. "The Seeds of Ideology: Historical Immigration and Political Preferences in the United States." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-118, May 2020. (Revised November 2020. Available also from VOX, UCLA Anderson Review and in Weekendavisen.) View Details

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Happily Ever After: Immigration, Natives' Marriage and Fertility

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