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Acculturation, education, and gender roles: Evidence from Canada

TitleAcculturation, education, and gender roles: Evidence from Canada
Year of Publication2019
AuthorsKessler, A. S., and Milligan K. S.
JournalCEPR Discussion Paper
Keywordsassimilation, culture, fertility, human capital, immigration, labor supply

This paper studies the influence of cultural norms on economic outcomes. We combine detailed information on second-generation female immigrants with historical data from their ancestral source countries to see how the cultural endowment affects current decisions on work and fertility. We show that results using the standard approach are sensitive to context and specification. We then extend to reveal an education gradient for cultural assimilation: lower-educated women exhibit a strong influence of cultural variables while higher educated women show no influence at all. We gather and present evidence on several potential mechanisms for the education gradient.