The Economic Progress of Hmong Refugees : Work and Wages

Abstract

Thousands of Hmong refugees arrived in the U.S. after 1975, along with hundreds of thousands of refugees and other immigrants from other Southeast Asian countries. Over forty years, these refugees and their families surmounted steep obstacles to achieve considerable economic progress in the U.S. In our research, we examine a rich set of microdata to measure the difficulties encountered by Hmong refugees, and we compare their path toward progress with that of other refugee and immigrant groups. Since Hmong refugees came to the U.S. with lower levels of education and English language skills than other groups, on average, it was more difficult for many of them to join the labor force. As a result, they gained less work experience over time, so their median wages grew more slowly. We use econometric methods to analyze U.S. Census and American Community Survey (ACS) microdata provided by IPUMS at the University of Minnesota. Our data include thousands of Hmong refugees who arrived in the U.S. between 1975 and 2016.