Earnings Attainment Research Articles

Moving to ‘Bei–Shang–Guang’? Internal migration, local hukou barriers and labour market outcomes among college graduates in China

AbstractBeijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, as the major metropolitan areas in China, offer good opportunities for economic and social mobility for in‐migrants. As such, these four locations have become the primary employment destinations for recent college graduates. Meanwhile, these cities have the most stringent hukou policies nationwide, which play a key role in the urban labour market segmentation between local residents and in‐migrants. Using three waves of data from a nationally representative survey, the China College Student Survey (2010, 2013, and 2015), this paper, for the first time, examined whether Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen have emerged as an ‘upward social class escalator region’ for young adults in China. After accounting for observed demographic and human capital characteristics and migrant selectivity, migrating into Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen has been found to be positively associated with earnings attainment, and the economic benefit from relocation is greater than that experienced by migrants elsewhere in the system. However, in‐migrants to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen have fewer opportunities to enter government organisations and public enterprises. These results cast doubt on the potential for Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen to act as escalators for individuals wishing to achieve all‐around upwards social mobility in China's urban labour market. The local hukou barrier may still be a salient factor in shaping migrants' labour market outcomes in China. This study contributes to existing knowledge on escalator theory by providing empirical evidence from an emerging market country, China. More importantly, it shed light on the role of location (such as large urban centres) in the complicated relationship between social mobility and migration.

Do Grandfathers Matter for Occupational and Earnings Attainment? Evidence from Swedish Register Data

Abstract A growing empirical and theoretical literature has investigated to what extent socioeconomic inequalities are influenced by the outcomes and characteristics of ancestors prior to the parental generation. This study contributes by examining multigenerational associations of adulthood earnings and occupational status in the entire Swedish population of boys and girls born 1968–1976, amounting to almost 400,000 three-generation lineages. The study population is followed until 2011, examining to which extent the strength of the grandfather–grandchild association depends on a set of characteristics describing the nature of the multigenerational relationship. More specifically, we investigate to what extent the transmission of attainment is influenced by the degree of overlapping lifespans, residential proximity, and competition for grandparental resources. While a robust multigenerational association exists net of the association between the attainment of parents and children, we do not find any support for the hypotheses that the strength of the association depends on neither the degree of social interaction between generations, nor on the number of siblings and cousins competing for grandparental resources.

Racial Pay Gap: An Analysis of CARL Libraries

Using data from the 8Rs CARL Libraries Practitioner Survey in 2014, this study assesses the impact of race on the earnings attainment process based on a sample of 392 CARL library practitioners. It determines that there is a significant salary disparity between visible minorities and nonvisible minorities. Racial differences in job characteristics account for a larger portion of the explained racial salary gap than individual and labor market characteristics. The effect of race on salary is shown to be weaker for librarians than for support staff.

CONTÍNUO RACIAL, MOBILIDADE SOCIAL E “EMBRANQUECIMENTO”

Although for a long time research on race in Brazil recognizes that racial categories are based on skin color distinctions along a black-white continuum, quantitative evidence on racial inequality is mostly based on the white versus non-white (brown and black) dichotomy or on the threefold categorization (white, brown and black). This way of using the variable helped to show the high levels of racial inequality. This finding, however, have always been questioned because of another aspect: the high ambiguity in racial classification and the possibility of “whitening” with money or with upward mobility. If this last feature is true, it is difficult to measure in a reliable way racial inequality. To deals directly with this dilemma I measure the “skin color continuum” combining answers to an open (respondents free choice) and to a closed (census categories) question about skin color. I implement counterfactual simulations to access the possible effects of “whitening with money” on educational, occupational and earnings attainment.

Which Child Immigrants Face Earnings Disparity? Age-at-immigration, Ethnic Minority Status and Labour Market Attainment in Canada

Using Canadian Census microdata from 1990 to 2005, we investigate the earnings attainment of immigrants to Canada in 6 age-at-arrival cohorts. In comparison to past work we extend our understanding regarding three dimensions of the age at immigration debate: we explore heterogeneity across fine grained age-at-arrival cohorts, over a fifteen-year period and across different ethnic groups. We find that white immigrants and female immigrants arriving in Canada prior to age 18 face little earnings disparity. In contrast, visible minority male immigrants face significant earnings disparity regardless of their age-at-migration, and additionally this disparity increases sharply with age-at-migration. We find a break in earnings attainment at an age-of-arrival of 17, with immigrants arriving after this age performing much worse than those arriving at this age or earlier. The patterns observed are found for visible minority immigrants as a whole, and for Chinese, South Asian and African/Black origin immigrants examined separately.

Immigration and the cost of ethnic subordination: the case of Israeli society

ABSTRACTThis study focuses on earnings disadvantages experienced by three ethnic groups of Jewish immigrants in Israel. Data were obtained from the 2011 Income Survey gathered by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. The findings reveal that when compared to Israeli-born, all ethnic groups are disadvantaged in earnings attainment in the first generation. The earnings disadvantages of immigrants as compared to Israeli-born decrease with the passage of time and become negligible in the second generation. To disentangle the impact on earnings penalty of ethnic origin from that of immigrant status, a procedure for decomposing mean differences between groups is introduced. The analysis reveals that earnings disadvantage among Ashkenazim and Soviet immigrants can be attributed to immigrant status but not to ethnicity. By contrast, earnings penalties among Sephardim immigrants can be attributed to both ethnicity and immigrant status. The implications of the long-lasting effect of ethnicity versus the short-term effect of immigrant status are discussed.

Feminized Intergenerational Mobility Without Assimilation? Post-1965 U.S. Immigrants and the Gender Revolution.

Women in the United States have made significant socioeconomic advances over the last generation. The second generation of post-1965 immigrants came of age during this "gender revolution." However, assimilation theories focus mainly on racial/ethnic trajectories. Do gendered trajectories between and within groups better capture mobility patterns? Using the 1980 decennial census and the 2003-2007 Current Population Survey (CPS), we observe the socioeconomic status of Latino and Asian immigrant parents and their second-generation children 25 years later. We compare the educational, occupational, and earnings attainment of second-generation daughters and sons with that of their immigrant mothers and fathers. We simultaneously compare those socioeconomic trajectories with a U.S.-born white, non-Latino reference group. We find that second-generation women experience greater status attainment than both their mothers and their male counterparts, but the earnings of second-generation women lag behind those of men. However, because white mainstream women experienced similar intergenerational mobility, many gaps between the second generation and the mainstream remain. These patterns remain even after we control for parenthood status. With feminized intergenerational mobility occurring similarly across race, the racial/ethnic gaps observed in 1980 narrow but persist into the next generation for many outcomes. Both gender and race shape mobility trajectories, so ignoring either leads to an incomplete picture of assimilation.

Ethnic Stratification amid China’s Economic Transition: Evidence from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region

This paper analyzes a sample from the 2005 mini-census of Xinjiang to examine ethnic stratification in China’s labor markets, with a special focus on how ethnic earnings inequality varies by employment sector. We show that Han and Uyghur Chinese dominated different economic sectors. Excluding those in agriculture, Uyghurs were more likely to work in government or institutions than either Han locals or migrants, and also more likely to become self-employed. The Han–Uyghur earnings gap was negligible within government/public institutions, but increased with the marketization of the employment sector. It was the largest among the self-employed, followed by employees in private enterprises and then employees in public enterprises. Han migrants in economic sectors enjoyed particular earnings advantages and hukou registration status had no impact on earnings attainment except in government/public institutions. These findings have important implications for understanding social and economic sources of increasing ethnic conflicts in Xinjiang in recent years.

Who succeeds as an immigrant? Effects of ethnic community resources and external conditions on earnings attainment

Previous studies about contextual effects on immigrant economic attainment have generally relied on information from detailed case studies. Focusing simultaneously on characteristics of immigrant groups and the receiving society, these studies produced insightful but strikingly different accounts of the dimensions of the context that affect economic attainment. Responding to this limitation, this paper constructs a comprehensive model of effects of contextual factors on immigrant earnings attainment using 2000 US Census data on all immigrant groups. The paper employs multilevel modeling in studying the effects of both ethnic community resources and external conditions on earnings attainment. Results indicate that both ethnic community resources and external conditions are dominant in shaping earnings attainment by immigrants. Especially important are group resource advantage and the economic conditions at the local labor market.

Need, Connections, or Competence? Criminal Achievement among Adolescent Offenders

Variations in criminal performance have been much less explored than other parameters of criminal careers. We explore the factors associated with differential criminal achievement in a sample of 154 adolescent offenders involved in cannabis cultivation. Drawing from theories of earnings attainment, we examine the role of drug use, criminal social capital and criminal human capital in providing either (a) monetary, or (b) in kind (cannabis) rewards from crime. Results reveal that criminal social capital and criminal human capital are related to performance while drug use explains little of the variation. Their effects, however, differ between outcomes: young offenders who are mainly connected to adult growers tend to be paid in kind, whereas respondents connected to a majority of other young growers tend to receive money. Criminal human capital is crucial to earning money but insignificant to obtaining larger payments in cannabis. Implications for criminal career and desistance research are discussed.

DEALERS, THIEVES, AND THE COMMON DETERMINANTS OF DRUG AND NONDRUG ILLEGAL EARNINGS*

Drug crime often is viewed as distinctive from other types of crime, meriting greater or lesser punishment. In view of this special status, this article asks whether and how illegal earnings attainment differs between drug sales and other forms of economic crime. We estimate monthly illegal earnings with fixed‐effects models, based on data from the National Supported Work Demonstration Project and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Although drug sales clearly differ from other types of income‐generating crime, we find few differences in their determinants. For example, the use of cocaine or heroin increases illegal earnings from both drug and nondrug crimes, indicating some degree of fungibility in the sources of illegal income. More generally, the same set of factors—particularly legal and illegal opportunities and embeddedness in criminal and conventional networks—predicts both drug earnings and nondrug illegal earnings.

Social Change, Cohort Quality and Economic Adaptation of Chinese Immigrants in Hong Kong, 1991–2006

This paper analyzes a series of population census and by-census data from 1991 to 2006 to examine the economic adaptation of Chinese immigrants in Hong Kong, focusing on their employment, occupational and earnings attainment. We pay particular attention to the adaptation of immigrants over time, and the effect of changes in the (overall) quality of the immigration cohort as a result of the immigration policy shift after Hong Kong's reunification with China in 1997. Results show that at the time of entry, mainland immigrants were less likely to be employed, more likely to be trapped in elementary occupations and to be earning much less than the natives. As they stayed longer, the gaps tended to decrease, but most immigrants were unable to reach parity with the natives with respect to earnings throughout their working lives. Men generally adapted at a faster pace than women. While new immigrants after 1997 fared worse in terms of employment and occupational attainment compared to those who arrived earlier (before 1997), there is no evidence to suggest that the changing cohort quality had any significant effect on overall income inequality.

Does gender and race have an impact on earnings in the library and information science labor market in the United States of America?

Using data from the 2003 US National Survey of College Graduates, a longitudinal survey administered by the US Bureau of Census for the National Science Foundation, this study examines earnings in the library and information science labor market and assesses the impact of gender and race on the earnings attainment process. This cross-sectional dataset is used to determine if there are significant differences in income among library and information science professionals with respect to gender and race. The approach taken in this study is to build a theoretical model of earnings attainment for librarians and information scientists. This is followed by a discussion of the methodology used to analyze the data and test the model, and the results, discussion including recommendations for further research, and conclusions.

Earnings attainment of immigrants in the USA: the effects of race, gender, and place of birth

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of race, gender, and region of birth by assessing the earnings of blacks and whites from Africa, blacks from the Americas, whites from Europe and Asians from Asia.Design/methodology/approachUsing data from the 2000 Census of Population and Housing, different income levels were used to see if there were any variations in earnings. Logistic regression analyses were used to estimate the odds of earnings at the various percentiles of the income of white African men, controlling for the human capital resources and other demographic variables.FindingsThe paper finds an unambiguous race effect among male workers. White males from both Africa and Europe have significant advantage over non‐white male workers from Africa, the Americas, and Asia. However, the earnings attainment is more favorable to white African males regardless of income levels. Further, a gender effect is also found in that relative to the earnings of white African‐born males, all the female workers in our study had lower odds at all the earning percentiles regardless of race and region of origin.Originality/valueThis paper helps clarify the issue of gender and stratification as it relates to immigrants in the USA.

Double Jeopardy? Female African and Caribbean Immigrants in the United States

This article uses United States census data from the 1990 and 2000 5 per cent Integrated Public Use Microdata Samples (IPUMS) to examine the earnings attainment for Black immigrant women (Africans and English-, French- and Spanish-speaking Caribbeans) and native-born Black women (African Americans). Data for both samples reveal sizeable earnings differences between the five groups. African, English and French Caribbean immigrant women exhibit noticeably higher average earnings than African Americans. However, with controls for earnings-related measures, the African immigrant advantage is eliminated in the 1990 sample, but not the English and French Caribbean immigrant advantage, nor the Spanish Caribbean immigrant disadvantage. No significant earnings difference was found between African Americans, English and Spanish Caribbean immigrants in the 2000 sample. Conversely, African and French Caribbean immigrants’ earnings were significantly lower than those for African Americans. For African immigrant college-degree holders especially, their higher education did not translate to high earnings. Notably, English-speaking Caribbean immigrant women, with a college degree or not, had a sizeable earnings advantage overall. The earnings for African and French Caribbean college-degree holders were significantly lower than those for English Caribbean college-degree holders. The theoretical implications of our findings are also discussed.

Ambitious mothers – successful daughters: Mothers' early expectations for children's education and children's earnings and sense of control in adult life

Mothers' expectations for their children's educational attainment are related to children's educational and occupational attainment. Studies have yet to establish, however, the long-term links between maternal expectations and offspring earnings, which are not always related to occupational attainment especially in women, or between maternal expectations and offspring sense of control and self-efficacy, which are pivotal factors in career choice and development. To explore the role of mothers' expectations for their children's educational attainment in children's earnings attainment and sense of control later in life. Data from sweeps of the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) were used. The study sample was those cohort members with complete information on all the variables of interest. The study sample (N=3,285) was more educated and less disadvantaged than the whole sample. If cohort members of this type are more likely to have a mother who has high expectations, then our results are biased downwards, which suggests that we underestimate the effect of expectations on our two outcome variables. Mothers' expectations at the age of 10 were positively related to daughters' sense of control at the age of 30 even after controlling for ethnicity, educational attainment, and concurrent partner, parent, and labour market participation status, as well as the following confounding variables (measured at the ages of 0-10): general ability and general ability squared, locus of control, emotional and behavioural problems and emotional and behavioural problems squared, socio-economic disadvantage, parental social class, parental family structure, and mothers' education, child-rearing attitudes, and mental health. Mothers' expectations had no effect on sons' adult outcomes. Given that women are particularly at risk for poor psychological and economic outcomes in adulthood, and that this study likely underestimated the effect of expectations on these two outcomes, this is an important conclusion.

Commentary: Of salmon and time travellers—musing on the mystery of migrant mortality

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Labor Market Segmentation and the Earnings of German Guestworkers

In this paper we study the occupational progress and earnings attainment of immigrants in Germany and compare them to native Germans. Our analysis is guided by the human capital, segmented labor market, and discrimination theories. To assess the separate effects of occupational segmentation and discrimination in the allocation of occupations and wages, we conceptualize the process of earnings attainment as occurring in three stages: initial occupational achievement, final occupational achievement after the accumulation of experience, and, contingent on the former, final earnings attainment. Our analysis of data from the German Socioeconomic Panel suggests a high degree of initial occupational segmentation, with mmigrants being less able to translate their human capital into a good first job than natives. We also find that immigrants experienced significant discrimination in the process of occupational attainment, yielding little job mobility over time, and a widening of the status gap between Germans and guestworkers. Holding occupational status constant, however, we find less evidence of direct discrimination in the process of earnings attainment. Although immigrants achieved lower rates of return to technical or vocational training than natives, their wage returns to experience, hours worked, years since migration, and academic high school were greater, yielding significant earnings mobility over time.

The Socioeconomic Determinants of Ill‐Gotten Gains: Within‐Person Changes in Drug Use and Illegal Earnings

Generalizing from the sociology of earnings attainment, we develop a conceptual model of social embeddedness in conventional and criminal activities to explain illegal earnings among criminal offenders. To isolate the effects of time‐varying factors such as legal earnings, drug use, and criminal opportunities, we use data from the National Supported Work Demonstration Project to estimate fixed‐effects models predicting month‐to‐month changes in illegal earnings. We find that criminal earnings are sensitive to embeddedness in conforming work and family relationships, criminal experience, and the perceived risks and rewards of crime. Moreover, heroin and cocaine use creates a strong earnings imperative that is difficult to satisfy in the low‐wage labor market, and offenders earn far more money illegally when they are using these drugs than during periods of abstinence.

Entry Class and the Earnings Attainment of Immigrants to Canada, 1980-1995

An important set of theoretical and policy questions revolves around the comparative success in the Canadian labour market of immigrants entering the country as independent immigrants under the point system, through family reunification programs, or as refugees. I estimate models predicting log earnings from the entry class composition of each entry cohort by country of birth and its interaction with years since arrival controlling for other characteristics known to be related to earnings attainment using data from Citizenship and Immigration Canada's Landing Information Data System (LIDS) for 1980 to 1995 merged with the 1996 Census of Canada Public Use Microdata File. While the point system used to screen immigrants to Canada for skills and labour market suitability does indeed select immigrants who have higher earnings upon arrival than those who are not screened, over time the earnings of the two groups converge after human capital differences are taken into account. In a comparison of the earnings of the refugee class to those of all other classes, the results here also indicate convergence net of human capital differences. These patterns are observed for both men and women.