A STUDY: EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT OF SECOND-GENERATION IMMIGRANTS IN ETHNIC GROUPS IN THE UK

Immigration in general has a positive impact on the GDP growth of a host country as the highly skilled migrants can
improve the total stock of human capital of the country, thus contribute to innovation and productivity growth. On
the other hand, the impact of immigration on the employment and wages of the native-born remains a core
concern in the public debates.
Over last two decades, there is an emerging research focus on immigrant generation. While the first-generation
immigrants observed having had an averagely negative net fiscal impact, the second-generation immigrants have
contributed positively because of their higher educational attainment level and earnings than that of their parents.
Research has shown that a number of influential factors, including parental education, household income, ethnic
identity, language spoken and fluency, and school quality etc have impact on the educational attainment of the
second-generation immigrants. To date, however, literature concerning the second-generation immigrants and
different ethnic groups is comparatively scarce.
This proposed research aims to analyse the gaps of education attainment and earning between secondgeneration
immigrants of different ethnic groups and natives in the UK, and further to reveal what the dominant
factors are behind them.