Returns To Education For Mexican Immigrants To The United States

Abstract: This thesis is about returns to schooling for Mexican immigrants to the United States. The United States became the home of many immigrants. There is an evidence that large amount of immigrants in USA are from Mexico. They are among both oldest and newest inhabitants of the nation. Mexican immigrants and their descendants now make-up a significant portion of the US population and have become one of the most influential social and cultural groups in the country. But many studies found that immigrants from Mexico show lower levels of educational attainment, which leads to lower earnings. Our aim is to focus on returns to schooling for Mexican immigrants to the United States using the Mincer’s earnings function. Using Current Population Survey (CPS) data, we analyzed the differences in returns to schooling between native Americans and Mexican immigrants. And also we investigated whether there are Sheepskin effects or not. We found that there are positive Sheepskin effects for both Mexican immigrants and native Americans. But still there is a difference in rate of return to schooling for natives and Mexican immigrants, namely the rate of returns to schooling for Mexican immigrants is lower than for natives.