Race, Wages, and Assimilation among Cuban Immigrants

Madeline Zavodny, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

This study uses data from the 1980 and 1990 Census and the 1994-2000 Current Population Survey to examine the determinants of earnings among male Cuban immigrants by race. Nonwhite immigrants earn significantly less than whites, on average. Much of the racial wage gap is due to differences in educational attainment, age at migration, and years in the U.S., but such factors cannot fully explain the gap. Nonwhite Cuban immigrants also have lower returns to education than whites. A comparison to white, non-Hispanic U.S. natives indicates that nonwhite Cubans not only earn less initially than white Cubans on arrival in the U.S. but do not significantly close the racial earnings gap over time.