What’s in A Name? The Economic Payoff of Name Americanization
My colleague Joel Dobris tipped me off to a reference in the Financial Times to a very interesting study of immigrant assimilation. In The Economic Payoff of Name Americanization, Costanza Biavaschi (IZA Corrado Giulietti Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)) and Zahra Siddique (University of ReadingThe study finds that migrants who Americanized their names experienced larger occupational upgrading. Some, such as those who changed to very popular American names like John or William, obtained gains in occupation-based earnings of at least 14%. The authors conclude that the tradeoff between individual identity and labor market success was present since the early making of modern America.
KJ
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