Characteristics and assimilation of Chinese immigrants in the US labour market

Using US Public Use Samples, this article examines differences in the quality and assimilation rate of different Chinese immigrant groups (immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China) in the US labour market. The descriptive statistics show great differences among Chinese immigrants from the three areas in their ages, wage rates, years of schooling and industrial and occupational distributions. This article also finds that the three Chinese immigrant groups have much more dispersed wage distributions than US-born workers have. The three Chinese immigrant groups also experienced substantial assimilation into the US labour market during the 1980s.