Labour market concentration of Asian ethnic groups in US metropolitan areas: a disaggregated study

Abstract

AbstractEthnic labour market concentration has been attracting increasing attention in recent years. But the Asian ethnic group has been treated as a homogeneous group in most studies on ethnic labour market segmentation. Using the 1% Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) from the metropolitan areas in the United States with the largest Asian populations, this study shows that Asian ethnic groups are quite diverse in their labour market concentrations. Asian Indian, Japanese and Filipino workers are more concentrated in professional and management employment sectors, which generally require higher levels of skill, English proficiency and education. By contrast, Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese groups are more concentrated in the labour‐intensive, semi‐ or low‐skilled manufacturing and personal service sectors. Their concentration patterns are closely related to their human capital characteristics. However, human capital cannot entirely explain the process of labour market choice. Analysis indicates that working with co‐ethnic populations could provide more job opportunities for disadvantaged workers, as a result of social networking. Location factors also impact niche employment choice. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.