When immigrants are not migrants: counting arrivals of the foreign born using the US Census
This paper compares characteristics of recent immigrant arrivals in the United States using two measures from the decennial US census: the came to stay question and the migration question. We show that just under 30 percent of immigrants who reported they came to stay between 1985-90 on the 1990 US Census Public Use Micro Sample were resident in the US on April 1, 1985. A similar analysis of the 1980 Census reveals that 22 percent of immigrants who reported they came to stay between 1975-80 lived in the US on April 1, 1975. Thus among recent arrivals, defined as those who reported they came to stay in the quinquennium preceding the Census, a large number were resident in the US five years before the Census date. Furthermore, the proportion of recent arrivals present in the US five years before the Census increased between 1975-80 and 1985-90. We show in this paper that the profile of recent arrivals is sensitive to their migration status. Generally, in both the 1975-80 and 1985-90 cohorts, those resident in the US five years before the Census have significantly less schooling and lower incomes than those who were abroad. Accordingly, we argue that estimates of the skill levels and hourly wages of recent arrivals to the US vary with the way arrival is measured. Researchers who rely on Public Use samples of the US census for their data should be aware that the year of entry question implies a broader definition of arrival than the migration question. We caution that immigration researchers should consider the idea of arrival more carefully to help distinguish between newcomers from the resident foreign-born.