TY - RPRT AU - Schüller, Simone TI - Parental Ethnic Identity and Educational Attainment of Second-Generation Immigrants PY - 2011/Nov/ PB - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) CY - Bonn T2 - IZA Discussion Paper IS - 6155 UR - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp6155 AB - A lack of cultural integration is often blamed for hindering immigrant families' economic progression. This paper is a first attempt to explore whether immigrant parents' ethnic identity affects the next generation's human capital accumulation in the host country. Empirical results based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) indicate that maternal majority as well as paternal minority identity are positively related to the educational attainment of second-generation youth – even controlling for differences in ethnicity, family background and years-since-migration. Additional tests show that the effect of maternal majority identity can be explained by mothers' German language proficiency, while the beneficial effect of fathers' minority identity is not related to language skills and thus likely to stem from paternal minority identity per se. KW - ethnic identity KW - second-generation immigrants KW - education ER -