Study says Hispanic immigrants move up economic ladder as well as Europeans over time

UNDATED - The children and grandchildren of Hispanic immigrants move up the economic and educational ladder in the United States as quickly as generations of European immigrants did, a new study says. <br> <br> The finding contrasts with prevailing beliefs that Latin American immigrants haven&#39;t mirrored Europeans&#39; generational advances because they make less of an effort to assimilate, take frequent trips back to their home countries and have faced discrimination, said James Smith, an economist at RAND, a nonprofit research group in Santa Monica, Calif. <br> <br> Smith wrote the study, which appears in the May edition of the American Economic Review. <br> <br> ``There&#39;s a widespread view among both scholars and the general public that the Latino immigrant experience has been very different than the European experience and the Asian experience,&#39;&#39; Smith said Thursday. <br> <br> ``That view is just wrong. Across generations, Latinos have done just as well as the Europeans who came in the early part of this century, and in fact slightly better.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Smith said previous research has used data from a very limited time- period. In his study, Smith examined census and other material to measure the progress of Hispanic men and their descendants over more than a century, up to those born in 1974. <br> <br> The study found Hispanic immigrants born between 1905 and 1909 had just a fifth-grade education. But their sons completed ninth grade and their grandsons graduated from high school. Those gains are even higher than European immigrants born during the same time-period, Smith said. <br> <br> Immigrants born during those same years earned 75 percent as much as U.S.-born white men over their lifetimes, according to the study. Their sons earned about 79 percent as much, and their grandsons almost 83 percent as much. <br> <br> ``Second and third-generation Hispanic men have made great strides in closing their economic gaps with native whites,&#39;&#39; Smith writes in the study. <br> <br> In general, third-generation Hispanics&#39; income is only about 10 percent behind U.S.-born whites, taking into account educational differences, he said. <br> <br> However, by the third generation, educational gains appear to drop off as Hispanics begin to look much like the rest of the U.S. population, the study found. <br> <br> Smith&#39;s study only looks at men, but his research on Hispanic women shows a similar pattern, he said. <br> <br> Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center, a research group, cautions against making projections based on trends in the study. <br> <br> ``It&#39;s an interesting and valuable historical look at intergenerational progress,&#39;&#39; Suro said, but ``that still doesn&#39;t answer the question we have, which is: Can the same patterns hold for today&#39;s immigrants and their offspring?&#39;&#39;