Changing the pace of the melting pot: The effects of immigration restrictions on immigrant assimilation
利用1921和1924年美国限制性移民政策及全量普查数据,发现受配额影响更大的移民更可能入籍,来自移民减少国家的移民更可能与本地人结婚,表明限制政策加速了已入境移民的同化。
This paper investigates the effects of restrictive immigration policies enacted in the US in 1921 and 1924 to explore the effects of immigration restrictions on recent immigrants using full-count US Census data and variation across national origins in the exclusionary policies. Immigrants more affected by the quotas were more likely to become naturalized citizens. Immigrants from countries that subsequently had migration reduced by the Acts were also more likely to marry someone born in the United States. The evidence in this paper, taken together, shows that the Immigrant Exclusion Act hastened the assimilation of already-landed immigrant men and impacted their short and long-run family outcomes.