The economic payoff of name Americanization
The economic payoff of name Americanization
We examine the impact of the Americanization of names on the labor market outcomes of migrants. We construct a novel longitudinal data set of naturalization records in which we track a complete sample of migrants who naturalize by 1930. We find that migrants who Americanized their names experienced larger occupational upgrading. Some, such as those who changed to very popular American names like John or William, obtained gains in occupation based earnings of at least 14%. We show that these estimates are causal effects by using an index of linguistic complexity based on Scrabble points as an instrumental variable that predicts name Americanization. We conclude that the tradeoff between individual identity and labor market success was present since the early making of modern America.
americanization, names, assimilation, migration
ESRC Centre for Population Change
Biacaschi, Constanza
269a9bd6-1575-47a1-8a59-67c73cb93770
Giulietti, Corrado
c662221c-fad3-4456-bfe3-78f8a5211158
Siddique, Zahara
6bf3e0f7-9c8a-4146-a6cd-b6a41e24a1a6
McGowan, Teresa
4524e894-04de-4822-8508-f4b966e12ae2
31 January 2014
Biacaschi, Constanza
269a9bd6-1575-47a1-8a59-67c73cb93770
Giulietti, Corrado
c662221c-fad3-4456-bfe3-78f8a5211158
Siddique, Zahara
6bf3e0f7-9c8a-4146-a6cd-b6a41e24a1a6
McGowan, Teresa
4524e894-04de-4822-8508-f4b966e12ae2
Biacaschi, Constanza, Giulietti, Corrado and Siddique, Zahara
,
McGowan, Teresa
(ed.)
(2014)
The economic payoff of name Americanization
(ESRC Centre for Population Change Working Paper Series, 43)
Southampton, GB.
ESRC Centre for Population Change
42pp.
Record type:
Monograph
(Working Paper)
Abstract
We examine the impact of the Americanization of names on the labor market outcomes of migrants. We construct a novel longitudinal data set of naturalization records in which we track a complete sample of migrants who naturalize by 1930. We find that migrants who Americanized their names experienced larger occupational upgrading. Some, such as those who changed to very popular American names like John or William, obtained gains in occupation based earnings of at least 14%. We show that these estimates are causal effects by using an index of linguistic complexity based on Scrabble points as an instrumental variable that predicts name Americanization. We conclude that the tradeoff between individual identity and labor market success was present since the early making of modern America.
Text
2014_WP43_The_economic_payoff_of_name_americanisation_Biavaschi_et_al.pdf
- Other
More information
Published date: 31 January 2014
Keywords:
americanization, names, assimilation, migration
Organisations:
Social Statistics & Demography, Centre for Population Change
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 361784
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/361784
ISSN: 2042-4116
PURE UUID: 47e783d5-6453-4b20-b127-65b1cc1a70fb
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 04 Feb 2014 11:26
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:25
Export record
Contributors
Author:
Constanza Biacaschi
Author:
Zahara Siddique
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics
