Racialized Labour Market Incorporation? African Immigrants and the Role of Education‐Occupation Mismatch in Earnings

Abstract

U.S. immigration policy debates increasingly center on attracting highly-skilled immigrants. African immigrants, in particular, exhibit high levels of over-education. But questions remain about whether African immigrants’ skills are appropriately utilized in the U.S. labour market. This paper uses U.S. Census and American Community Survey data to determine whether Africans’ over-education leads to a corresponding wage disadvantage. I also investigate whether search and match, imperfect transferability, or queuing theory describes African immigrants’ wage outcomes. I find that, while African and Asian immigrants have similarly high rates of college education and over-education, Africans experience significantly larger wage disadvantages due to over-education. African immigrants’ low wages are closer to that of U.S. and Caribbean-born blacks indicating that queuing theory describes their wage disadvantage. These findings suggest the need for policy addressing racial disparities in the labour market rather than new immigration policy.