Isn’t it an apples-to-oranges comparison to compare salaries listed on I-129 petitions to earnings reported in the ACS? The former is prospective, applies to a single job, and only includes the base salary. The latter, on the other hand, is retrospective, can include earnings from multiple jobs, and can include bonuses + pay renegotiations.
I didn't look into that, but heterogeneity by country of origin is common in immigration research. So my prior is: Yes. The country of origin info is in the data.
the reason i ask is that English proficiency seems like a pretty plausible confounder. i assume you don't have data on that, but country of origin data could maybe give some insight into whether that's driving part of the wage gap
That's a good point. First time I hear it. No language info in the H-1B data. There's also the problem that two countries account for about 80% of the visas if I recall correctly (India and China).
Might want to look at H-1b wages for Canadian H-1Bs. It's decades ago that I worked at Intel on an H-1b. Still, at the time (late 1990s and early aughts) I know that I was paid about twenty percent less than my similarly experienced and trained American peers. I also got fewer stock options than my American peers. So, at least in my experience, English proficiency didn't help me with the wage gap.
Isn’t it an apples-to-oranges comparison to compare salaries listed on I-129 petitions to earnings reported in the ACS? The former is prospective, applies to a single job, and only includes the base salary. The latter, on the other hand, is retrospective, can include earnings from multiple jobs, and can include bonuses + pay renegotiations.
is there heterogeneity in your estimated wage gap by country of origin?
I didn't look into that, but heterogeneity by country of origin is common in immigration research. So my prior is: Yes. The country of origin info is in the data.
the reason i ask is that English proficiency seems like a pretty plausible confounder. i assume you don't have data on that, but country of origin data could maybe give some insight into whether that's driving part of the wage gap
That's a good point. First time I hear it. No language info in the H-1B data. There's also the problem that two countries account for about 80% of the visas if I recall correctly (India and China).
Might want to look at H-1b wages for Canadian H-1Bs. It's decades ago that I worked at Intel on an H-1b. Still, at the time (late 1990s and early aughts) I know that I was paid about twenty percent less than my similarly experienced and trained American peers. I also got fewer stock options than my American peers. So, at least in my experience, English proficiency didn't help me with the wage gap.
Don't know if that is still the case.
Very interesting. Thanks for letting me know about your experience.