Benefits of education at the intensive margin: childhood academic performance and adult outcomes among American immigrants

Using the Children of the Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS), we examine the association
between education at the intensive margin and twenty pecuniary and non-pecuniary adult
outcomes among first- and second-generation American immigrant youth. Education at the
intensive margin is measured by two widely used standardized math and reading test scores,
national percentile rankings on these tests and cumulative grade point average (GPA) in both
middle and high school. Our findings provide evidence that the academic achievement of
immigrant children in early adolescence is an accurate predictor of later life outcomes. We
also examine a novel hypothesis that relative academic performance of immigrant children in
high school compared to middle school, which could be an indicator of change in adolescent
aspirations and motivation as well as the degree of adaptation and assimilation to the host
country, has an effect on their adult outcomes even after controlling for the levels of
academic performance in middle and high school. The results suggest that an improvement
in GPA from middle school to high school is associated with favorable adult outcomes.
Several sensitivity tests confirm the robustness of main findings.