Age of Entry, Economic Assimilation, and Social Integration: Evidence from Childhood Immigrants in Hong Kong

This project aims to study the effect of the age of entry of childhood immigrants on their economic assimilation and social integration in Hong Kong. Using the census microdata, we will utilize the educational attainment and earnings differentials of childhood immigrants to natives to measure economic assimilation, and employ the incidence of intermarriage and differences in spouse’s socioeconomic status and childbearing behaviors to measure social integration. In particular, this project will demonstrate the delay in the age of entry of childhood immigrants after the handover of Hong Kong to China and evaluate the resulting consequences on their economic assimilation and social integration. In other contexts of international migration, for adaptation to the receiving society immigrants need to overcome racial, ethnic and linguistic obstacles, all of which involve the role of age of entry. Since the vast majority of immigrants to Hong Kong are from Mainland China and share the same race, ethnicity and (written) languages as Hong Kong natives, this project can better disentangle the roles of age of entry that are less confounded by its interactions with the racial, ethnic and linguistic background of immigrants