Is there really a wage premium among Portuguese descendants in the United States?

Alda B. Azevedo, Universidade de Lisboa
Lara Tavares, Universidade de Lisboa
Nachatter Garha, Universidad de La Coruña
Martha Estrada Rivera, PhD student

According to the 2020 U.S. Census, nearly 1.5 million people in the United States report having Portuguese ancestry, and yet little was known about their socioeconomic dynamics in the 21st century. This study builds upon the work of Azevedo et al. (2023), exploring whether Portuguese descendants’ wage premium relative to other U.S. residents persist when accounting for various individual characteristics, and examining whether language plays a role in this wage premium. Using the 2018-2022 American Community Survey microdata, we employed multivariate linear regression to assess the wage premium, focusing on the impact of the Portuguese language while controlling for demographic, socioeconomic, and geographical factors. Our preliminary results indicate that Portuguese descendants have an annual wage premium of USD 1,501 compared to other U.S. residents. This premium is especially pronounced among those who speak Portuguese (USD 5,448) vis-à-vis those who do not (USD 855). Robustness checks, including models incorporating other ancestry groups and excluding Portuguese speakers born in Brazil, further support these findings. The results suggest that speaking Portuguese can be an asset rather than an indicator of poor integration. To enhance our understanding, future research will include qualitative interviews exploring the networks and motivations of Portuguese descendants.

Keywords: Census data, Human Capital, Education, and Work, International Migration, Inequality, Disadvantage and Discrimination

See extended abstract.