Age‐at‐Arrival’s Effects on Asian Immigrants’ Socioeconomic Outcomes in Canada and the U.S.1

Age‐at‐arrival is a key predictor of many immigrant outcomes, but discussion continues over how to best measure and study its effects. This research replicates and extends a pioneering study by Myers, Gao, and Emeka [International Migration Review (2009) 43:205–229] on age‐at‐arrival effects among Mexican immigrants in the U.S. to see if similar results hold for other immigrant groups and in other countries. We examine data from the 2000 U.S. census and 2006 American Community Survey, and 1991, 2001, and 2006 Canadian censuses to assess several measures of age‐at‐arrival effects on Asian immigrants’ socioeconomic outcomes. We confirm several of Myers et al.’s key findings, including the absence of clear breakpoints in age‐at‐arrival effects for all outcomes and the superiority of continuous measures of age‐at‐arrival. Additional analysis reveals different age‐at‐arrival effects by gender and Asian ethnicity. We suggest guidelines, supplementing those offered by Myers et al., for measuring and studying age‐at‐arrival’s effects on immigrant outcomes.     

Explaining Pro‐Immigrant Sentiment in the U.S.: Social Class,Cosmopolitanism, and Perceptions of Immigrants1

In the U.S., research on attitudes toward immigrants generally focuses on anti‐immigrant sentiment. Yet, the 1996 General Social Survey indicates that half the population believes that immigrants favorably impact the U.S. economy and culture. Using these data, we analyze theories of both pro‐ and anti‐immigrant sentiment. While we find some support for two theories of intergroup competition, our most important finding connects a cosmopolitan worldview with favorable perceptions of immigrants. We find that cosmopolitans – people who are highly educated, in white‐collar occupations, who have lived abroad, and who reject ethnocentrism – are significantly more pro‐immigrant than people without these characteristics.     

Are Immigrant Youth Faring Better in U.S. Schools?1

In spite of the growing numbers and geographic dispersion of foreign‐born children, the school outcomes of foreign‐born teens improved during the 1990s. Analysis of Decennial Census data reveals that fewer immigrant youth dropped out of school and their English language proficiency improved. Some of the improvement is due to compositional change in the foreign‐born teen population. Levels of parental education increased over the decade. Poverty among foreign‐born adolescents declined. Other youth background characteristics did not change in a favorable direction. Multivariate analysis reveals that there was a large decline in the likelihood of immigrant teens dropping out of school above and beyond the demographic changes over the decade. For example, the likelihood that a Mexican‐born teen educated in U.S. schools drops out of school declined by an estimated 43 percent over the 1990s. There is little evidence, however, that U.S. schools have improved in their English language instruction over the decade.     

Self‐Employed Mexican Immigrants Residing along the U.S.‐Mexico Border: The Earnings Effect of Working in the U.S. versus Mexico1

This study uses U.S. census data from the year 2000 to analyze the earnings of Mexican immigrants along the U.S.‐Mexico border while accounting for the location in which they work. The empirical results indicate that Mexican entrepreneurs who live in U.S.‐border cities but primarily operate in Mexico accrue a significant earnings premium over their entrepreneurial and salaried counterparts working on the U.S. side of the border, even after controlling for differences in observable characteristics. This work‐location earnings gap widens when focusing on Mexican business owners lacking U.S. citizenship. It follows that policies which reduce trade and labor flows across the U.S.‐Mexico border may inadvertently dampen the entrepreneurial activities of foreign‐born residents in U.S.‐border cities.     

Chinese Immigrants in the U.S. Labor Market: Effects of Post‐Tiananmen Immigration Policy1

The Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and ensuing government crackdown affected Chinese nationals not only at home but also around the world. The U.S. government responded to the events in China by enacting multiple measures to protect Chinese nationals present in the United States. It first suspended all forced departures among Chinese nationals present in the country as of June 1989 and later gave them authorization to work legally. The Chinese Student Protection Act, passed in October 1992, made those Chinese nationals eligible for lawful permanent resident status. These actions applied to about 80,000 Chinese nationals residing in the United States on student or other temporary visas or illegally. Receiving permission to work legally and then a green card is likely to have affected recipients’ labor market outcomes. This study uses 1990 and 2000 census data to examine employment and earnings among Chinese immigrants who were likely beneficiaries of the U.S. government’s actions. Relative to immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea – countries not covered by the post‐Tiananmen immigration policy measures – highly educated immigrants from mainland China experienced significant employment and earnings gains during the 1990s. Chinese immigrants who arrived in the U.S in time to benefit from the measures also had higher relative earnings in 2000 than Chinese immigrants who arrived too late to benefit. The results suggest that getting legal work status and then a green card has a significant positive effect on skilled migrants’ labor market outcomes.     

Socioeconomic Differences in Having Living Parents and Children: A U.S.‐British Comparison of Middle‐Aged Women

This article examines the relationship between socioeconomic status and having living children and parents among 55‐ to 63‐year‐old women in the United States and Britain. The goals are to quantify the outcomes of slightly different demographic regimes on close kin networks and to assess the potential implications of policies that in both countries increasingly emphasize family responsibility. In the cohorts examined, U.S. respondents are substantially more likely to have living parents and children, but the pattern of socioeconomic effects is similar across countries. Higher socioeconomic status is associated with having fewer children and, less consistently, is associated with a higher probability of having living parents and being childless. However, higher‐status women are more likely to have both living parents and children.     

The Socioeconomic Incorporation of Immigrant and Native‐born Day Labourers in Tshwane,South Africa

It has been widely documented that unauthorized immigrants experience adverse economic incorporation in destination countries, particularly in the global North. Faced with restricted employment opportunities, many are drawn into informalizing segments of the labour market where earnings are low and unstable. Much less is known about how immigrant workers fare in the informal economy of cities of the South. Using surveys conducted in 2004, 2007 and 2015, we examine the economic outcomes of immigrant and native‐born workers who participate in the day labour markets of Tshwane, South Africa. In 2004 there were signs that foreign‐born workers enjoyed modestly better outcomes than South Africa‐born workers. In the latter periods, however, these advantages have disappeared and there are indications of a downward convergence of employment outcomes. The article concludes with a call for creating worker centres to regulate informal job markets for the benefit of workers, regardless of immigration status.     

The Effect of Immigrant Communities on Foreign‐Born Student Achievement1

This paper explores the effect of the human capital characteristics of co‐ethnic immigrant communities on foreign‐born students’ math achievement. We use data on New York City public school foreign‐born students from 39 countries merged with census data on the characteristics of the immigrant household heads in the city from each nation of origin and estimate regressions of student achievement on co‐ethnic immigrant community characteristics, controlling for student and school attributes. We find that the income and size of the co‐ethnic immigrant community has no effect on immigrant student achievement, while the percent of college graduates may have a small positive effect. In addition, children in highly English proficient immigrant communities test slightly lower than children from less proficient communities. The results suggest that there may be some protective factors associated with immigrant community members’ education levels and use of native languages.     

Painful Passages: Traumatic Experiences and Post‐Traumatic Stress among U.S. Immigrant Latino Adolescents and their Primary Caregivers

Using data from a stratified random sample of 281 foreign‐born adolescents and their parents in the United States, this study provides data on migration‐related trauma exposures and examines how the migration process influences the risk of experiencing trauma and developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We find that 29 percent of foreign‐born adolescents and 34 percent of foreign‐born parents experienced trauma during the migration process. Among those that experienced trauma, 9 percent of adolescents and 21 percent of their parents were at risk for PTSD. Pre‐migration poverty combined with clandestine entry into the U.S. increased the risk of trauma and the subsequent development of PTSD symptoms. Post‐migration experiences of discrimination and neighborhood disorder further exacerbated this risk, while social support and familism mitigated it. Our results emphasize the importance of understanding how factors prior to, during, and after migration combine to influence the health of immigrants.     

Public Assistance Use among U.S.‐Born Children of Immigrants1

U.S.‐born children of immigrants may be less likely to receive some social services than are children of native‐born parents if foreign‐born parents who are themselves ineligible are less likely to apply on their children's behalf. We use retrospective data from a sample of about 2,400 lowincome households in three U.S. cities to determine whether children with foreign‐born caregivers are less likely than children with native‐born caregivers to receive benefits from any of five programs over a two‐year period: TANF, SSI, Food Stamps, Medicaid, and WIC. The most significant disparities between children of citizen and noncitizen caregivers are in TANF and food stamp use.     

On ‘flip‐flopping’: Branded stance‐taking in U.S. electoral politics1

This article examines stance in U.S. political discourse, taking as its empirical point of departure Democratic candidate John Kerry's epistemic stance‐taking in the televised 2004 presidential debates. Kerry's stance‐taking is shown to help display the characterological attribute of ‘conviction’ and serve as a rejoinder to critics who had branded him as a ‘flip‐flopper.’ His stance‐taking is thus not primarily ‘to’ or ‘for’ copresent interactants, but is largely interdiscursive in character. ‘Conviction’ and its opposite, ‘flip‐flopping,’ suggest further how stance‐taking itself has been an object of typification in the agonistic dynamics of candidate branding and counter‐branding. In moving from epistemic stance‐taking in discourse to models of the stance‐taker as a social type, this article addresses questions about the units and levels of analysis needed to study stance in contemporary political discourse.     

Income Adequacy and Social Security Differences Between the Foreign‐Born and U.S.‐Born1

This paper projects retirement income and Social Security taxes and benefits among the foreign‐born and U.S.‐born in the United States. Focusing on the Depression and the late baby boom birth cohorts, we find that foreign‐born persons have higher poverty rates than the U.S.‐born, and as a group do not receive higher lifetime net benefits from Social Security than do the U.S.‐born. However, persons from the late baby boom cohort who immigrated after 1969 have higher projected rates of return in Social Security than do U.S.‐born persons of the same birth cohort.     

Socioeconomic Status and Age: The Effect of Income Sources and Portfolios on U.S. Adult Mortality

Despite the persistent inverse relationship between family income and mortality, no one has examined the effect of distinct income sources or income portfolios on mortality risk. We link the National Health Interview Survey to the Multiple Cause of Death file and use hazard models to examine income-related mortality across four age groups. Income from jobs, self-employment, interest, and dividends each predicts lower mortality at the younger, middle, and early old ages. Diverse income portfolios buffer against mortality risk at all ages, net of the amount of income received. These findings illuminate the various dimensions of income that shape U.S. mortality risks.     

Threshold Effects in the U.S. Budget Deficit

We contribute to the debate on whether the U.S. large federal budget deficits are sustainable in the long run. We model the U.S. government deficit per capita as a threshold autoregressive process. We find evidence that the U.S. budget deficit is sustainable in the long run and that economic policy makers will only intervene to reduce per capita deficit when it reaches a certain threshold. (JEL C32 , E62 )     

The Short Term Effects of Immigrant Students on the Educational Achievements of Native‐Born Students

Since 1989 nearly one million immigrants from the FSU have arrived in Israel. Although well‐educated on average, most of these immigrants lacked economic means. The purpose of the present study is to examine whether the presence of immigrants in schools affected the educational achievements of their Israeli‐born peers. We analyzed data pertaining to 8,288 Israeli tenth graders who attended 208 schools in 1994. Respondents' records were obtained from the Ministry of Education and the Bureau of the Census. Using hierarchical models we examined the effects of the proportion of immigrant students in a school and of their parents' education on the probability that Israeli‐born students in the school would earn matriculation certificates. Results did not yield evidence of any negative spillover effects on the educational achievements of the native students. Moreover, the presence of many immigrant students with high educational backgrounds increased the likelihood of Israeli‐born students earning matriculation certificates.     

The Effects of Socioeconomic Status and Proactive Personality on Career Decision Self‐Efficacy

This study investigated the relationship of family socioeconomic status and proactive personality to career decision self‐efficacy in a sample of 336 Taiwanese college students. The results of the partial least squares path modeling analysis showed that both socioeconomic status and proactive personality were positively associated with career decision self‐efficacy. These findings support person input variables as being predictive of career decision self‐efficacy and provide career counselors with insight into how to design career interventions for improving college students’ career decision self‐efficacy. Implications for career counseling and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

The Importance of Ownership Arrangements in U.S. Agriculture1

Abstract According to a number of observers of the U.S. economy, large publicly traded corporations can be viewed as a social problem primarily because of their association with the concentration of wealth and power. In agriculture, nine states have laws which restrict or proscribe public corporations from engaging in farming. Also, groups and individuals have attempted to preserve non-corporate production enterprises in agriculture through the establishment of direct markets such as farmers' markets. Proponents of such efforts believe public corporations have negative economic impacts; opponents of such efforts, especially efforts to establish and retain anti-corporate farming laws, argue that corporations can provide economic benefits to rural areas. These debates beg the question of whether ownership and direct marketing arrangements have important influences on economic outcomes such as levels of cash returns from farming and increases in the number of farms realizing cash gains. Using multi-year, county-level data from the Census of Agriculture, this study finds that, even when holding a number of important variables constant, ownership arrangements, as well as the (interaction between the percentage of total sales which are direct sales and the percentage of farms selling directly, are important determinants of both net cash returns and the percentage of farms realizing cash gains.     

The Cat and Mouse Game at the Mexico‐U.S. Border: Gendered Patterns and Recent Shifts1

This paper provides new insights into the process of undocumented border crossing by examining both men and women in the process. We investigate differences in the ways in which men and women make their way across the well‐guarded Mexico‐U.S. border, and the extent to which men and women by the end of the 1990s were similar to, or different from, their counterparts who crossed before 1986 and the implementation of immigration policy designed to reduce undocumented migration. We find substantial differences in how men and women crossed the border without legal documents and in their chances of being apprehended. Our analysis makes clear that shifts in U.S. immigration policy after 1986 have led to women's greater reliance on the assistance of paid smugglers to cross without documents but men were more likely to cross alone. Moreover, immediately after 1986, women on first U.S. trips faced higher risks of being apprehended compared to women who migrated in the early 1980s, but men faced lower risks. After accumulating some U.S. experience, however, both women and men faced lower risks of being detected after 1986 compared to earlier in that decade.     

Immigrant Religion in the U.S. and Western Europe: Bridge or Barrier to Inclusion?

This article analyzes why immigrant religion is viewed as a problematic area in Western Europe in contrast to the United States, where it is seen as facilitating the adaptation process. The difference, it is argued, is anchored in whether or not religion can play a major role for immigrants and the second generation as a bridge to inclusion in the new society. Three factors are critical: the religious backgrounds of immigrants in Western Europe and the United States; the religiosity of the native population; and historically rooted relations and arrangements between the state and religious groups.