Immigrant Incorporation Research Articles

Superficial Equality: Gender and immigration in Asian American political participation

ABSTRACTAsian American men and women have voted at roughly similar rates across the last three presidential elections. This sets Asian Americans apart; women in America have generally voted at higher rates than men since the 1980s. The women in politics and immigrant incorporation literatures suggest that pathways to participation may be distinct for women and men. Yet, there is scant attention to gender in studies of Asian American political participation. As a result, little theoretical or empirical foundation exists for explaining why the gender gap in participation is so different for Asian Americans. To better understand this puzzle, we analyze pooled data from the National Asian American Surveys of 2008, 2012, and 2016. The data show that women are less likely to vote than men once we account for variables related to resources, mediating institutions, and immigrant incorporation. We also demonstrate that Asian American women who are foreign-born citizens are less likely to participate across a range of modes of political action, and across ethnic groups. We argue that this is evidence that gender and ethnicity simultaneously condition the processes of immigrant political incorporation, and the study of gender gaps must be approached more broadly as a political and comparative phenomenon.

Race, Ethnicity, the Political Incorporation of Black Immigrants: an Examination of Evidence from Presidential Elections Won by Barack Obama

This study uses data from the Voter Supplement of the Current Population Survey (CPS) to examine the implications of the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections for the political incorporation of Black immigrants. Our results show that these elections were associated with larger increases in turnout among Black immigrants compared to Asian, Hispanic, and White immigrants. In the first and third-plus generations, we find a reversal in the Black-White disparity in voting patterns between the 2004 presidential election won by George Bush and the subsequent elections won by Barack Obama. Our analysis further provides a nuanced picture of the historical overall increases in Black turnout observed during the election of Barack Obama. In other words, we show that these increases were mostly driven by higher turnout among third-plus generation, US-born Blacks and first-generation African immigrants. While increases in turnout were observed among second-generation Africans and first and second-generation immigrants from the Caribbean, our results indicate that they were not statistically significant. Overall, our findings imply that the election of America’s first Black president was associated with notable increases in political participation among Black immigrants, but that these increases varied across Black immigrant groups.

Access to general social protection for immigrants in advanced democracies

Immigration has become a central socio-political issue in most advanced democracies. While research mainly focuses on immigrant-specific policies in the area of immigration, integration and citizenship, we still know very little about the incorporation of immigrants into mainstream social policies. By analysing cross-national differences in the inclusion of immigrants into general social protection across 27 rich democracies on the basis of comparative indicators from the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) dataset, we seek to address this gap in a quantitative study. A cross-national comparison of these indicators shows a particularly large variation in the inclusiveness of the access to social protection for immigrants across countries. By drawing on the welfare state and integration regime literature, we assess the power of two contrasting perspectives, namely, the post-national welfare state and the welfare chauvinism models, in explaining this large cross-national variation in immigrants’ access to social security and social housing. Our overall findings suggest that both the welfare chauvinist and the post-national welfare state models comprise two theoretical perspectives that turn out to be fruitful to interpret cross-national variation in immigrants’ access to social protection. According to the welfare chauvinism model, we find robust evidence that left-wing cabinets are particularly reluctant to open general social protection schemes to immigrants. By contrast and in line with expectations derived from the post-national welfare state model, countries with an overall generous welfare state and countries facing large immigration flows tend to provide immigrants with more generous access to social protection.

Access to general social protection for immigrants in advanced democracies

Immigration has become a central socio-political issue in most advanced democracies. While research mainly focuses on immigrant-specific policies in the area of immigration, integration and citizen...

Exclusionary Labor and Partially Inclusionary Marriage Immigration Incorporation: The Cases of Japan and Korea

Exclusionary Labor and Partially Inclusionary Marriage Immigration Incorporation: The Cases of Japan and Korea

A Relational Inequality Approach to First- and Second-Generation Immigrant Earnings in German Workplaces

We conceptualize immigrant incorporation as a categorically driven process and contrast the bright distinctions between first-generation immigrants and natives, with more blurry second-generation contrasts. We analyze linked employer-employee data of a sample of 5,097 employees in 97 large German organizations and focus on first- and second-generation immigrants. We explore how generational status in the labor market and workplace contexts expands and contracts native-immigrant wage inequalities. We find a substantial average first-generation immigrant-native wage gap, which is not explained by individual human capital differences or most aspects of organizational context. In contrast, there is, on average, no second-generation wage gap, but there are substantial variations across workplaces. A series of results confirm predictions from relational inequality theory. For both first- and second-generation immigrants, working in a high-inequality workplace is associated with larger wage gaps. Second-generation immigrants perform better in workplaces where they have intersectional advantages over natives, and for first-generation immigrants collective bargaining protection narrows wage gaps with natives. Consistent with ethnic competition theory, in workplaces with very high shares of immigrant workers, the first-generation–native wage gap is larger. In contrast, increased contact between native Germans and second-generation immigrant coworkers reduces earnings gaps, but only up to a tipping point, after which competition processes reappear and earning gaps widen.

Segmented Paths? Mexican Generational Differences in the Transition to First-Time Homeownership in the United States

Homeownership represents an important indicator of immigrant incorporation and assimilation. This study is a longitudinal analysis of the transition to first-time homeownership among a cohort of youths followed from 1979 to 2009 using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY, 1979). In particular, I examine Mexican generational group differences in the transition to first-time homeownership over an observation period that spans 30 years while evaluating theories of straight-line and segmented assimilation. I find that Mexican homeownership rates do not increase in a linear fashion across generations, relative to native, non-Hispanic whites, even after controlling for various social, demographic, and economic characteristics. Furthermore, analyses limited to Mexicans reveal that first- and second-generation respondents exhibit more success in the transition to first-time homeownership than their third-generation counterparts. Contrary to observing linear gains in homeownership across generations, I find that Mexicans are experiencing segmented paths towards homeownership and achieving upward mobility across generations.

Comparative social rights: status and integration in the US

In this essay we develop a framework for better understanding how a focus on enhancing the social rights of immigrants and migrants can lead to greater levels of social incorporation for these groups into their destination countries and/or communities. First, we discuss how the concepts of social rights and incorporation have been used in the social sciences to understand migrants and immigrants. Second, we critically discuss models of immigrant incorporation derived from studies of the US and Europe to demonstrate the value of developing comparative frameworks across distinct countries and communities. Third, we develop and apply the categories of status and integration to discuss how social rights derived from public policy can serve to inhibit or facilitate the effective incorporation of immigrants and migrants. Fourth, we describe how subnational, state-level governments have become increasingly critical actors in affecting both status and integration in the United States. We demonstrate that social rights and incorporation cannot be understood in the US today without an appreciation for variation across distinct state governments. Lastly, we conclude with a consideration of how our analysis makes very clear that government officials are in key positions to determine the scope and depth of immigrant and migrant social rights and incorporation in ways that can simultaneously serve the long-term interests of immigrants, migrants, and the nation state as a whole.

Institutions, Incorporation, and Inequality: The Case of Minority Health Inequalities in Europe.

Scholars interested in the relationship between social context and health have recently turned attention further "upstream" to understand how political, social, and economic institutions shape the distribution of life chances across contexts. We compare minority health inequalities across 22 European countries ( N = 199,981) to investigate how two such arrangements-welfare state effort and immigrant incorporation policies-influence the distribution of health and health inequalities. We examine two measures of health from seven waves of the European Social Survey. Results from a series of multilevel mixed-effects models show that minority health inequalities vary across contexts and persist after accounting for socioeconomic differences. Cross-level interaction results show that welfare state effort is associated with better health for all groups but is unrelated to levels of inequality between groups. In contrast, policies aimed at protecting minorities from discrimination correlate with smaller relative health inequalities.

Immigrants and poverty, and conditionality of immigrants’ social rights

It is not only immigration and the incorporation of immigrants into society that serve as challenges for post-industrialised countries, but also rising inequality and poverty. This article focuses on both issues and proposes a new theoretical perspective on the determinants of immigrant poverty. Building on comparative welfare state research and international migration literature, I argue that immigrants’ social rights – here understood as their access to paid employment and welfare benefits – condition the impact which both the labour market and welfare system have on immigrants’ poverty. The empirical analysis is based on a newly collected dataset on immigrants’ social rights in 19 advanced industrialised countries. The findings confirm the hypotheses: more regulated minimum wage setting institutions and generous traditional family programmes reduce immigrants’ poverty more strongly in countries where they are granted easier access to paid employment and social benefits.

Becoming Italian, becoming American: ethnic affinity as a strategy of boundary making

ABSTRACTBased on the case study of Albanian immigrant incorporation in a Little Italy in the Bronx, this paper develops the concept of ethnic affinity. It argues that boundary-work between ethnic Italians and Albanian immigrants resulted in intergroup relations that coupled Albanian occupational incorporation with the (re)construction of respective group identities as culturally similar – and distinct from Latino and African-American groups in the neighbourhood. Engaging recent literature on ethnic boundary making, I argue that ethnic affinity constitutes a new strategy of boundary reinforcing, in addition to established strategies of boundary crossing, blurring, and shifting (Zolberg and Woon 1999; Wimmer 2008). Developed in the context of shifting ethno-racial neighbourhood makeup, this affinity between ethnic Italians and Albanian immigrants relied on American constructions of shared European whiteness, overturning contemporary divides between Italians and Albanians in Europe. Ethnic affinity provides a conceptual framework that goes beyond notions of ethnic succession, passing, or assimilation.

Voting Rights and Immigrant Incorporation: Evidence from Norway

How do political rights influence immigrant integration? This study demonstrates that the timing of voting rights extension plays a key role in fostering political incorporation. In Norway, non-citizens are eligible to vote in local elections after three years of residency. Drawing on individual-level registry data and a regression discontinuity design, the study leverages the exogenous timing of elections relative to the start of residency periods to identify the effect of early access to political institutions. It finds that immigrants who received early access were more likely to participate in subsequent electoral contests, with the strongest effects visible among immigrants from dictatorships and weak democracies. It also observes evidence consistent with spillover effects for other aspects of political engagement. These findings suggest that early access to voting rights influences subsequent trajectories of immigrant incorporation, in particular among immigrants from less developed states who may otherwise face high integration barriers.

Latino Immigrant Home-Country Media Use and Participation in U.S. Politics

This article examines the ways in which Latino immigrants’ use of news media from their home countries influences their likelihood of participating in politics in the United States. Using data from the 2015 Latino National Health and Immigration Survey of 1,005 Latino adults in the United States, I run a set of multivariate analyses to determine whether home-country media use affects the likelihood that Latino immigrants, 52% of whom use home-country media at least a few times per week, will vote, participate in political protests, attend meetings, sign a petition, or make a donation to political causes. I find that home-country media use has a significant, independent effect on the likelihood of protesting and signing petitions. This article bridges our understanding of media effects on participation for Latino immigrants and the importance of transnational political behavior to civic participation and incorporation of immigrants in the United States.

Being seen: visibility, families and dynamic remittance practices

This paper seeks to respond to the limited discussion about why remittances cease, by exploring the dynamic meaning of remittances to senders. We interviewed 43 labor migrants in Israel about remittance practices. We discovered that many migrants no longer regularly remit, and those who do remit changed their initial pattern for remitting, often for reasons independent of a left behind family’s financial need or a sender’s financial ability to send. Remittances help migrants manage the stress from labor migration by providing identity benefits. Labor migrants often describe themselves as ‘invisible’ to both left-behind families and people in the receiving country. Remittances can render migrants visible by generating new roles in the family and generating a positive self-image when experiencing downward mobility due to dirty, dangerous and dull work. If migrants form new families, their need to remit declines. If familial roles changes, value as a remitter declines, costs exceed benefits or because contracting partners change, remittance practices may change or cease. We show how social relations shape this visibility and new family contracts affect remittances practices. The findings have implications for understanding the multibillion-dollar remittances industry, immigrant incorporation, and transnational family relationships.

Fertility and education among British Asian women: a success story of social mobility?

High fertility among immigrant groups is often analysed as an expression of specific cultural factors and/or lower social status. I hypothesise that differences in educational attainment explain the fertility differentials across immigrant groups and generations in the UK. Building on previous work, and using household survey data and the Own-Child reverse-survival method, the paper presents for the first time total fertility and age-specific fertility estimates by broad categories of educational attainment for immigrant and second-generation British Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, and Chinese women. I use these estimates to analyse how education influences childbearing across British Asian ethnic groups, and compare the fertility patterns of these groups to those of the whole UK population. High levels of educational attainment contribute substantially to the low overall fertility levels of Indian and Chinese women. Higher education also contributes to the lower fertility levels of the second-generation British Pakistani and Bangladeshi women relative to those of the immigrant generation. Some differences between groups remain after decomposing by educational level, which suggests that there are additional influencing factors. The results are discussed in the context of social theories on the incorporation of immigrants and minorities.

Migrants’ transnational political engagement in Spain and Italy

AbstractInternational migrants’ cross-border political activities challenge singular notions of national citizenship and political belonging. Yet most sociological studies of migrants’ transnational political engagement are based on single national groups in the USA, and limit themselves to examining how assimilation and contexts of reception determine migrants’ propensity to engage with homeland politics—thereby under theorizing the influence of origin countries. This study moves beyond this approach by recognizing the multi-directionality of migration, and testing the applicability of existing theoretical approaches across two different origins and receiving contexts. We compare a sample of Colombian and Dominican migrants in Spain and Italy, analyzing how contexts in countries of origin, as well as migrants’ social networks across borders, interact with assimilation and contexts of reception to determine migrants’ political transnational engagement. Findings reveal migrants’ transnational political engagement in Spain and Italy appears to be a highly selective process dominated by a small minority of well-educated males from high social status in origin. Findings also suggest immigrant incorporation and transnational political engagement form a dialectical relationship operating at different scales that is simultaneously complementary and contradictory. Contextual conditions in origin countries explain observed much of variation in Colombian and Dominican migrants’ transnational political engagement.

Skill Composition and Occupational Incorporation of Early and Recent Immigrants in Switzerland: the case of Italians and Spaniards

AbstractUsing the 1980 Census and 2010‐2011 Structural Survey, we compare the socio‐demographic profile and the occupational incorporation of Italian and Spanish immigrants arriving in Switzerland between 1976 and 1980 with those arriving during the second half of the 2000s. We find evidence that the traditional over‐representation of Italian and Spanish immigrants among the lower strata of the occupational hierarchy at the end of the guest worker period is explained by their negative selection in terms of education and host language proficiency, corroborating the human capital hypothesis. However, the results also show the persistence of occupational disadvantages for these immigrants after controlling for human capital characteristics, indicating the existence of segmentation dynamics in the Swiss labour market. In contrast, recent cohorts of immigrants from Italy and Spain have definitively joined the collective of highly skilled foreign workers correctly matched in the Swiss labour market in accordance with their positive skill‐selectivity.

Delegation of childcare in immigrant families and its consequences

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on the role of social reproduction tasks (motherhood and childcare) in the reproduction of cultures and the social incorporation of first-generation and second-generation immigrants. It draws upon a very particular case study of Vietnamese immigrant families that hire Czech nannies for their second-generation children. The article presents an analysis of 15 interviews with Vietnamese mothers who delegate(d) childcare and 20 interviews with second-generation Vietnamese children who have had a Czech nanny. It is based on the assumption that the social reproductive sphere includes not only the embodied work of childcare but also the work of reproducing cultures and social incorporation. Many scholars argue that the activities connected with childcare (usually called ‘bridging’ activities, including communication with public authorities and schools and participation in the local neighbourhood) that are traditionally performed by women take on a new dimension after migration. They become the means by which immigrant mothers are integrated and develop the social capital and skills that help them adapt to the new country. What happens in an immigrant family when caregiving (including the bridging activities) is delegated to another person? How does the role of the mother – with its limited content – shape the women’s position in the new country? The aim of this study is to examine how both mothers and children make sense of the delegation of care and its consequences for the social incorporation of first-generation mothers who delegate care and for second-generation children who are cared for by nannies. Addressing this particular case of migrant mothers who perform a limited form of mothering, the paper illuminates the key role of motherhood in women’s post-migratory integration and contributes to the scholarly discussion on the meanings of (migrant) motherhood.

In-Group and Out-Group Networks, Informal Social Activities, and Electoral Participation Among Immigrants in South Korea

With increasing global migration, immigrant incorporation and assimilation have become a growing concern. Prior research has mostly focused on economic adaptation of immigrants in North American and European context. This study shifts the focus to political incorporation of foreign-born spouses and other naturalized citizens living in South Korea, a topic that has received very little attention. Its primary goal is to examine the relationship between bridging and bonding social capital, measured in terms of interpersonal networks and informal social activities, and formal political participation, i.e., voting. Data come from the National Survey of Multicultural Families (2012), the largest and most up-to-date government-funded research project on Korea’s burgeoning immigrant population. Using multilevel analysis, this study shows that ties to inter-ethnic contacts (native Koreans) and greater involvement in informal social life are associated with higher odds of voting among immigrants. Greater embeddedness in in-group or co-ethnic networks, on the other hand, is associated with lower odds of voting participation. Moreover, net of individual-level network and background factors, living in a community with a higher level of social activities, is related to greater electoral participation.

Gendering Illegality: Undocumented Young Adults’ Negotiation of the Family Formation Process

Although previous scholarship demonstrates that gender profoundly affects the immigrant incorporation process, few studies assess the role of gender in the lives of 1.5-generation undocumented young adults. Drawing on 92 in-depth interviews, I examine how gender and immigration status intersect to affect undocumented young adults’ dating, marriage, and parenting experiences. Although all undocumented young adults face the same structural limitations, I argue that their gendered social position leads men and women to experience and negotiate their illegality differently. Gendered expectations make immigration status relevant in different ways throughout of the family formation process, and affect undocumented young adults’ ability to negotiate the limitations associated with their immigration status. As a result, undocumented young men are less likely than women to fully participate in family formation and move toward social incorporation. These findings suggest that gender plays a significant role in shaping experiences of illegality and that navigating gendered expectations is an important micro-level process within immigrant incorporation.