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Background Matters, but Not Whether Parents Are Immigrants: Outcomes of Children Born in Denmark

Mathias Fjællegaard Jensen & Alan Manning

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics2025https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20230389article
AJG 4ABDC A*
Weight
0.43

Abstract

In Europe, the children of migrants often have worse economic outcomes than those with local-born parents. This paper shows that children born in Denmark with immigrant parents (first-generation locals) have lower earnings, higher unemployment, less education, more welfare transfers, and more criminal convictions than children with local-born parents. However, when we condition on parental socioeconomic characteristics, first-generation locals generally perform as well or slightly better than the children of locals. While children of immigrants are more likely to come from deprived backgrounds, they do not experience substantially different outcomes conditional on parental background. (JEL I38, J13, J15, J31, J82)

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20230389

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@article{mathias2025,
  title        = {{Background Matters, but Not Whether Parents Are Immigrants: Outcomes of Children Born in Denmark}},
  author       = {Mathias Fjællegaard Jensen & Alan Manning},
  journal      = {American Economic Journal: Applied Economics},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20230389},
}

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Evidence weight

0.43

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.32 × 0.4 = 0.13
M · momentum0.55 × 0.15 = 0.08
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.