Success on European Labor Markets: A Cross‐national Comparison of Attainment between Immigrant and Majority Populations1

Typical labor market outcomes vary considerably between majority and migrant populations. Drawing on scholarship from across the social sciences, we assess competing micro‐ and macro‐level explanations of differential occupational attainment among immigrant groups across 28 countries. The analyses of occupational attainment are run separately for first‐ and second‐generation migrants as well as children of mixed marriage and take into account their wider social and cultural background. Results from four rounds of the European Social Survey show that people with a migration background do not necessarily achieve a lower labor market success than the majority. However, human capital, social mobility, and cultural background explain these outcomes to different degrees, suggesting tailored pathways to labor market success for each group of migrants. We also find that occupational attainment varies considerably across countries, although this is hardly attributable to immigration policies. These and other findings are discussed in the light of previous studies on immigrant incorporation.     

Does Selective Migration Matter? Explaining Ethnic Disparities in Educational Attainment among Immigrants’Children1

Understanding why some national‐origin groups excel in school while others do not is an enduring sociological puzzle. This paper examines whether the degree of immigrants’educational selectivity ‐ that is, how immigrants differ educationally from non‐migrants in the home country ‐ influences educational outcomes among groups of immigrants’children. This study uses published international data and U. S. Census and Current Population Survey data on 32 immigrant groups to show that as immigrants’educational selectivity increases, the college attainment of the second generation also increases. Moreover, the more positive selection of Asian immigrants helps explain their second generations’higher college attendance rates as compared to Europeans, Afro‐Caribbeans, and Latinos. Thus, the findings suggest that inequalities in relative pre‐migration educational attainments among immigrants are often reproduced among the next generation in the United States.     

Buying a Voice: Gendered Contribution Careers among Affluent Political Donors to Federal Elections, 1980–2008

Early work in feminist theory hypothesized that differences in women and men's social and institutional roles might be reflected in the ways they participate in the political sphere. However, past empirical research has found scant evidence of a gender gap in the participatory strategies or motivations of women and men who become active in politics. But significantly less is known about the gender gap among a more select and increasingly significant player in American politics—political donors. In this article, we utilize a novel big data set—called the Longitudinal Elite Contributor Database (LECD)—that contains the population of all itemized donations made in federal elections between 1980 and 2008. Using this novel big data set supplemented with Social Security Administration (SSA) data on the gender of first names, we provide original estimates of the long‐term evolution of gender representation in the donor pool, vis‐à‐vis when, how often, and to whom affluent men and women have made political contributions over nearly 30 years. We find that large and persistent gendered inequalities of political voice continue to characterize this significant form of political influence. We theorize the potential implications of these findings for the representation of women's interests in the political sphere.     

Factoring Turbulence Out: Diaspora Regulatory Mechanism and Migration Development Bank

The ongoing economic crisis has shifted much of the policy debate to problems of financial sector regulation, productive capacity collapse, among others. However, this leaves unattended the real situation with labour migration, which directly impacts social and economic inner components of being of millions of individual families across the world. The somewhat ad hoc nature of the process poses several policy issues for the home and host economies alike. Immediate concerns relate to streamlining migrants and remittances flows. This involves sensitive aspects of inequality in migrant workers’ labour efforts vis‐à‐vis domestic workers; migrants’ social and legal status; and less obvious, but still profound, unproductive misallocation of labour resources. Derived from this premise and recognizing the need for an institutional approach, this paper offers alternative policy solutions to temporary labour migration regulation. This research’s original propositions include a Diaspora Regulatory Mechanism and a Migration Development Bank, both operating within a state‐managed temporary labour migration regime. Fiscal action, including multilateral agreements, is crucial. The functionality of these mechanisms will directly impact infrastructure, human capital and entrepreneurial projects development in both home and host economies. Discussion is inspired by the analysis of actual circumstances in the economies of the Commonwealth of Independent States, where migration is a social, economic, and increasingly political issue. In the interlinked world, diasporas become dominant actors across all society strata. The development plateau of the post‐socialist states offers a rich economic and social soil to conduct responsible policy with future outlook. Moreover, conditions of ongoing economic crisis offer a unique opportunity for daring research to propose and for a motivated decisionmaker to implement original, proactive, and beneficial policy solutions aimed at streamlining the (temporary) labour migration process. This paper contributes to the emerging literature on topics of diaspora, labour migration, and remittance flows.     

Between Two Worlds: Source‐Country Gender Roles and Gender Differences in Educational Attainment among Immigrant Children

Recent scholarship has focused on the relationship between source‐country characteristics such as female labor force participation, fertility, level of economic development, gender role attitudes, and immigrants’ labor market assimilation. These studies refer to national‐level factors when accounting for the vast differences in home‐country groups in labor market outcomes. This study asks to what extent these source‐country characteristics affect immigrant children's educational outcomes. Using data from the 2006 Canadian Census and World Values Survey, this article examines the extent to which the gender gap in educational attainment among immigrant children is associated with source‐country factors. Female child immigrants who come from countries with high female labor force participation and high levels of GDP have an advantage over their male counterparts in university education. Source‐country gender role ideology played a role in university completion rates for immigrant parents, but not for child immigrants.     

Income,Relationship Quality,and Parenting: Associations With Child Development in Two‐Parent Families

Prior research suggests considerable heterogeneity in the advantages of living in a 2‐parent family. Specifically, children living with married biological parents exhibit more favorable outcomes than children living with cohabiting biological parents and with married and cohabiting stepparents. To explain these differences, researchers have focused almost exclusively on differences in the levels of factors such as income, parental relationship quality, and parenting quality across family types. In this study the authors examined whether differences in the benefits associated with these factors might also account for some of the variation in children's cognition and social‐emotional development. Focusing on children at the time they enter kindergarten, they found only weak evidence of differences in benefits across family types. Instead, they found that children living in stepfather families experienced above‐average levels of parental relationship quality and parenting quality, which in turn played a protective role vis‐à‐vis their cognitive and social‐emotional development.     

A Development Delivery Institution for the Tribal Communities: Experience of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in India

This article examines the varied impacts of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) as a development delivery institution for the tribal communities vis‐à‐vis other social groups across the Indian States, using the framework of new institutional economics. A number of State‐specific, socio‐economic institutional factors seem to be responsible for these variations. The article therefore suggests institutional reforms and convergence of the development initiatives of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs with the NREGS in order to realise the optimal potential of the scheme, and, in particular, to ensure greater livelihood opportunities for these marginalised groups and their entitlement to productive resources with greater socio‐economic and political empowerment.     

Explaining Native‐Migrant Differences in Parental Knowledge about the German Educational System

To make sound educational decisions, students and their parents have to be informed about the way the educational system works. Such knowledge, however, tends to vary across social groups. This study investigates the differences in education‐related knowledge between native and migrant mothers in the German context. Empirical analyses based on a sample of native German mothers and mothers from Turkey or the former Soviet Union (N = 2076) indicate that migrant mothers know less about the German educational system than their native counterparts. An investigation of the potential sources of these knowledge gaps shows that migrants’ weaker socio‐economic status explains a substantial part of their lower level of knowledge, particularly among families of Turkish origin. Furthermore, migrants’ less profitable social network composition and lower levels of German language skills contribute to their information deficits. Based on these empirical results, the study considers opportunities for improving the knowledge base of migrant parents.     

Immigrant socioeconomic mobility in the United States: Mechanisms of inequality and the role of ethnic capital

We review recent social science research on the socioeconomic mobility of immigrants to the United States by focusing on the educational, occupational, and income attainments among immigrant adults, the first‐generation, and the educational attainment of their children, the New Second‐Generation. Existing research has identified significant inequalities in educational attainment between second‐generation Asian and Latinx immigrant groups. Researchers have also highlighted the importance of ethnic capital for mobility, but we find that they have largely proceeded with the assumption that co‐ethnic ties are easily available as a benefit for immigrants upon resettlement. We propose that future research on immigrant socioeconomic mobility should incorporate conceptual insights from economic and cultural sociology as well as use comparative ethnographic research designs to directly observe how ethnic capital operates to challenge or reinforce patterns of socioeconomic inequality.     

THE TRANSNATIONAL GEOGRAPHIES OF IMMIGRANT POLITICS: Insights from a Comparative Study of Migrant Grassroots Organizing1

Greater global interconnectedness produces a transformation in the ways in which groups constitute and interpret the boundaries of community formation and political practice. This article considers the ways in which a group engages (or not) with the possibilities for transnational identity formation and border‐crossing politics granted by the changing structures of the global order. A comparative analysis identifies similarities and differences in the patterns of community formation and political engagement of Salvadoran migrants settled across different urban centers of North America. Variations in the territorial orientation and scales of immigrant political practice are explained by the national and city‐level contexts of immigrant reception, the institutional opportunity structure in which migrant groups are embedded, and the nature of relations between migrants and their migrant and nonmigrant institutional interlocutors in places of settlement and their country of origin.     

Race,class and the shaping of a policy for immigrants: the case of the Netherlands

Ethnic stratification constitutes a (potential) threat to social stability. The major factors that determine the immigrants' position are 1) ethnic differences between them and the original population (and among the various immigrant groups themselves) and 2) the social system of the receiving society and the way in which the major distribution mechanisms in that system operate. For a very long period immigration policy in the Netherlands was based on the principle that it was not a country of immigration and it would not become one. Thus, it had a rather liberal admissions policy until 1980 because immigration was not expected to lead to permanent settlement. Ethnic minority groups constitute about 4.3% of the total population, but they are heavily overrepresented in the metropolitan areas. The culturalist approach in Dutch policy allowed opportunities for migrants to retain their own "cultural identity." During the 1970s the government supported the creation of a variety of institutions which served exclusively the different immigrant groups. After the policy change in the 1980s the Dutch allowed the immigrant institutions to continue to exist, to provide a "shelter" which would help the migrants emancipate within Dutch society. Meanwhile, they launched campaigns to inform the Dutch about immigrant cultures. This approach encountered difficulties: 1) the relatively small size of each immigrant group, the large and growing differences and oppositions within these groups, and their geographical dispersal, often made it impossible to set up separate institutions with even minimal viability; 2) there was a lack of leaders in most minority groups; 3) the economic crisis of the early 1980s hit the immigrants much more strongly than the general population; and 4) a "blame-the-victim" attitude developed among a growing number of Dutchmen. In 1983 the government shifted to a structuralist approach, by striving to overcome social disadvantage and achieve legal equality. This approach also has its limitations. Recently, institutional racism has been growing. The government now aims to have immigrants proportionally represented in all major institutions, but it is only on a voluntary basis. The author concludes: 1) both the cultural and the structuralist approach are insufficient in overcoming the migrants marginal position; and 2) culturalist and structuralist approaches clash sometimes. Ethnic pluralism should no longer be viewed as a stage in integration processes, but rather as one of its possible outcomes.     

Smuggled Versus Not Smuggled Across the Czech Border

The main goal of this paper is to analyze the spatial behavior of unauthorized migrants in their attempts to irregularly cross the Czech state's “green” border (including walking trails) into Austria and Germany, between 2005 and 2007. It demonstrates the importance of select demographic and human characteristics of the migrants, as well as the physical features of the environment, in their crossing. Our main premise concerning the importance of smuggling and the more sophisticated means and strategies employed among migrants using smugglers' services (vis‐à‐vis those without smugglers) was confirmed.     

Economic Well‐Being in Salvadoran Transnational Families: How Gender Affects Remittance Practices

This article examines how migrant parents' gender affects transnational families' economic well‐being. Drawing on 130 in‐depth interviews with Salvadoran immigrants in the United States and adolescent and young adult children of migrants in El Salvador, I demonstrate that the gender of migrant parents centrally affects how well their families are faring. Gender structurally differentiates immigrant parents' experiences through labor market opportunities in the United States. Simultaneously, gendered social expectations inform immigrants' approaches to parental responsibilities and remitting behaviors. Remittances—the monies parents send—directly shape children's economic well‐being in El Salvador. I find that even though immigrant mothers are structurally more disadvantaged than immigrant fathers, mother‐away families are often thriving economically because of mothers' extreme sacrifices.     

Transnational migration: taking stock and future directions

Increasing numbers of sending states are systematically offering social and political membership to migrants residing outside their territories. The proliferation of these dual memberships contradicts conventional notions about immigrant incorporation, their impact on sending countries, and the relationship between migration and development in both contexts. But how do ordinary individuals actually live their lives across borders? Is assimilation incompatible with transnational membership? How does economic and social development change when it takes place across borders? This article takes stock of what is known about everyday transnational practices and the institutional actors that facilitate or impede them and outlines questions for future research. In it, I define what I mean by transnational practices and describe the institutions that create and are created by these activities. I discuss the ways in which they distribute migrants’ resources and energies across borders, based primarily on studies of migration to the United States.     

Making something of the sacrifice: gender,migration and Mexican children's educational aspirations

Transnational families often use international migration as a strategy not only for survival, but also for social mobility. Migrant parents hope their sacrifices via migration will translate into educational benefits for non‐migrant children. In this article, we use mixed methods to explore the success of parents' efforts by considering the relationship between gender, family migration patterns and the educational aspirations of children in the Mixteca region of Mexico. Analysis of surveys collected from 1273 students show that mothers' migrations affect children's educational goals in different ways depending on whether they migrate alone or with their husbands. Fathers' lone migrations have no significant impact on children's educational aspirations. Interviews with 51 children of migrants suggest that children of unmarried migrant mothers are motivated academically because they invest in their mothers' migrations as a sacrifice, whereas the emotional consequences of parental absences lower the educational aspirations of children with both parents in the USA.     

Father's Labour Migration and Children's School Discontinuation in Rural Mozambique

We examine how the discontinuation of schooling among left‐behind children is related to multiple dimensions of male labour migration: the accumulation of migration experience, the timing of these migration experiences in the child's life course, and the economic success of the migration. Our setting is rural southern Mozambique, an impoverished area with massive male labour out‐migration. Results show that fathers’ economically successful labour migration is more beneficial for children's schooling than unsuccessful migration or non‐migration. There are large differences, however, by gender: compared with sons of non‐migrants, sons of migrant fathers (regardless of migration success) have lower rates of school discontinuation, while daughters of migrant fathers have rates of school discontinuation like those of daughters of non‐migrants. Furthermore, accumulated labour migration across the child's life course is beneficial for boys’ schooling, but not girls’. Remittances sent in the past year reduce the rate of discontinuation for sons, but not daughters.     

The transnational politics of the Tomato King: meaning and impact

Abstract In this article we deploy transnational ethnography to explore the transnational electoral politics by which Andrés Bermúdez, a successful tomato grower and labour contractor from Winters, California, who came to be called ‘the Tomato King’, was elected mayor of the municipality of Jerez in the Mexican state of Zacatecas. We seek to explain the meaning of his transnational electoral victory and its impact on the role of ‘the migrant’ as a new social actor in Mexican political development. We thus situate the Bermudista phenomenon in the context of the literature on migrant transnational politics. We hope to move the literature on migrant political transnationalism forward by advancing an agency‐oriented perspective that incorporates both the politics of representation of ‘el migrante’ in transnational electoral campaigns and the emerging dynamics of transnational coalition politics. Our approach underlines the need to carefully historicize the relationship between transnationalism and citizenship ‐ namely, to map the contingency and agency underlying the changing practices of states, migrants, and transnational institutional networks vis‐à‐vis questions of transnational citizenship. This is best done by paying close attention to the actual social and political practices whereby human agents pursue historically specific political projects that extend the practices of citizenship across borders.     

Language Background,Ethno‐Racial Origin,and Academic Achievement of Students at a Canadian University

Research conducted in Canada and the United States shows that the age of arrival of immigrant children, language spoken in the home, and ethno‐racial origin have consequences for English language acquisition and academic attainment. So far, however, the degree to which these factors have consequences for academic achievement at the post‐secondary level has scarcely been studied. In this study, it is found that the communication skills of university students who are the sons and daughters of immigrants, independent of length of time in Canada, are not as high as those of native‐born English‐speaking Canadians. Moreover, all else being equal, independent of length of time in the country, the university GPAs of immigrant and non‐European origin groups are generally lower than those of native‐born Canadians. Findings such as these suggest the presence of social and cultural processes at the family, community, and educational system level that continue to disadvantage identifiable groups of post‐secondary students.     

Immigrant Gateways and Hispanic Migration to New Destinations1

Our understanding of the underlying demographic components of population change in new Hispanic destinations is limited. In this paper, we (1) compare Hispanic migration patterns in traditional settlement areas with new growth in emerging Hispanic destinations; (2) examine the role of immigration vis‐à‐vis domestic migration in spurring Hispanic population redistribution; and (3) document patterns of migrant selectivity, distinguishing between in‐migrants and non‐migrant Hispanics at both the origin and destination. We use several recent datasets, including the 1990 and 2000 Public Use Microdata Samples (which include new regional geocodes), and the 2005 and 2006 files of the American Community Survey. Our results document the widespread dispersion of the Hispanic population over the 1990–2006 period from established Hispanic gateways into new Hispanic areas and other parts of the country. Nearly one‐half of Hispanic net migration in new destinations comes from domestic gains. In contrast, both established and other Hispanic areas depend entirely on immigration, with each losing domestic migrants to high growth areas. Migrant flows also are highly differentiated by education, citizenship, and nativity. To fully understand the spatial diffusion of Hispanics requires a new appreciation of the complex interplay among immigration, internal domestic migration, and fertility.     

Pre‐ and Post‐Migration Determinants of Socio‐Cultural Integration of African Immigrants in Italy and Spain

Using a unique dataset (N=2,014), we examine the pre‐ and post‐migration determinants of socio‐cultural integration among first‐generation immigrant groups in southern Europe: Moroccan and Senegalese migrants in Spain, and Egyptian and Ghanaian migrants in Italy. The results of the pooled and immigrant‐group specific regression analyses partly highlight the dominance of pre‐migration factors. Immigrants who were well‐educated and well‐informed prior to migrating and who migrate at a young age, achieve higher levels of socio‐cultural integration. Going against some hypotheses found in the literature, female gender and North African origin have a positive effect on socio‐cultural integration as opposed to male gender and sub‐Saharan origin. With regard to post‐migration factors, occupational status is the main economic determinant of socio‐cultural integration. Interestingly, being employed as such has no significant effect on socio‐cultural integration. This suggests that labour market segmentation and discrimination negatively impact upon socio‐cultural integration. The results also suggest that policies allowing immigrants to benefit from the human capital they carry across borders and achieve upward socio‐economic mobility are likely to enhance their socio‐cultural integration.