Acculturation, Education, and Gender Roles: Evidence from Canada

This article studies the influence of cultural norms on economic outcomes. We combine detailed information on second-generation female immigrants with historical data from their ancestral source countries to see how the cultural endowment affects current decisions on work and fertility. We show that results using the standard approach are somewhat sensitive to context and specification. We then extend to reveal an education gradient for cultural assimilation: lower-educated women exhibit a strong influence of cultural variables while higher-educated women show no influence at all. We gather and present evidence on several potential mechanisms for the education gradient.

Published version (April 2021)

Final draft (February 2020)