Ethnic enclaves and immigrant outcomes: Norwegian immigrants during the Age of Mass Migration

This paper examines the effect of ethnic enclaves on economic outcomes of Norwegian immigrants in 1910 and 1920, the later part of the Age of Mass Migration. Using various identification strategies, including county fixed effects and an instrumental variables strategy based on chain migration, I consistently find that Norwegians living in larger enclaves in the United States had lower occupational earnings, were more likely to be in farming occupations, and were less likely to be in white-collar occupations. Results are robust to matching method and choice of occupational score. This earnings disadvantage is partly passed on to the second generation.