Immigrant Selection Research Articles

Socioeconomic selectivity of Japanese migration to the continental United States during the Age of Mass Migration

ABSTRACT This study explores the socioeconomic selectivity of Japanese male immigrants who migrated to the continental United States (US) during the Age of Mass Migration (mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century) by comparing the US administrative records of Japanese long-term immigrants interned during World War 2 (WRA records) with a Japanese social survey of non-migrants (SSM survey). Both data contained information on educational attainment in Japan, the father's occupation in Japan, birth cohort, and birth prefecture. The analysis revealed positive educational selectivity of the long-term migration of both secondary- and tertiary school-educated Japanese males in all the migratory time periods. The selectivity of secondary school-educated Japanese males was especially strong and extended to males from all family backgrounds and all Japanese prefectures. Given the strong middle-class nature of secondary and tertiary education in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century in Japan, the results showed that first-generation Japanese immigrants were positively selected in terms of their socioeconomic status. These findings are important because the growing literature on socioeconomic selection in migration during the Age of Mass Migration has predominantly focused on transatlantic (Europe–US) migration and has largely neglected transpacific migration from Asia.

Evaluating Foreign Skills: Effects of Credential Assessment on Skilled Immigrants’ Labour Market Performance in Canada

Formal educational qualification is increasingly built into immigrant selection systems in many countries, but in a global context, the transferability and portability of such qualifications has been questioned. In 2013, Canada introduced the requirement for a formal assessment of educational credential equivalence for applicants in the skilled worker category. In this study, we use a Canadian national immigration database and difference-in-differences methodology to investigate whether requiring formal Educational Credential Assessment (ECA) as part of the selection process for skilled immigrants has improved labour market outcomes. Our results indicate that the ECA requirement is positively related to early employment rates and earnings for both men and women. However, this effect is limited to those with no previous employment experience in Canada. We also find that, even with the ECA requirement, significant differences in the earnings of immigrants from different source regions remain. Implications and recommendations are discussed.

Should Cities Control Immigration Policy?

AbstractAvner de Shalit wants cities to have their own immigration policies. On a radical reading, this would transfer control over immigrant admissions from states to cities. But can cities choose the immigrants they prefer on economic or cultural grounds, or does this discriminate unfairly against those judged to be less desirable? I argue that de Shalit fails to apply the luck egalitarian principle consistently when discussing immigrant admissions. I also claim that there is a tension between seeing cities as the bearers of distinct cultural ethoses, and therefore as bulwarks against the homogenising effects of globalization, and disbarring them from carrying out culturally selective immigration policies. De Shalit’s own preferred model of the immigrant‐friendly city – Amsterdam – appears to lack any distinct ethos, other than an ethos of welcome and cultural blending. Moreover, democratic states also have a legitimate interest in controlling immigration. They must be concerned about the consequences for social justice of admitting migrants and the political effects that follow when the migrants become citizens themselves. They must also consider the environmental impacts of population growth. Cities should play a major role in integrating immigrants, but not in admitting them.

Parental migrant status and health inequalities at birth: The role of immigrant educational selectivity

Immigrants tend to exhibit better health than natives despite immigrants' more disadvantaged socioeconomic status. This paradox has often been attributed to immigrants' pre-migration selectivity. However, most empirical studies investigating the role of selectivity have focused on adult health; less attention has been paid to children's birth outcomes outside the U.S. context. Using data from the Etude Longitudinale Française depuis l’Enfance (ELFE), a nationally representative sample of over 18000 births in France in 2011, we investigate the role of immigrant parents' educational selectivity in shaping four birth outcomes: birthweight, low birthweight, prematurity, and being born small for gestational age. Results from linear and logistic regressions confirm a health advantage for children of immigrants compared to natives despite lower parental socioeconomic status, mainly among children of Middle Eastern and North African parents. Immigrant parents' positive pre-migration educational selectivity explains most of this health advantage, predominantly among children with two immigrant parents. Further, mediation analyses indicate that the effect of educational selectivity is partially mediated by parental health behaviors, particularly smoking during pregnancy. Furthermore, analyses suggest that selectivity improves birth outcomes only for children of recent arrivals, with less than five years of residence in France. The beneficial effect of selectivity declines with length of residence, suggesting that a process of “unhealthy assimilation,” coupled with the cumulative exposure to health risks and disadvantaged living conditions, may lead to the erosion of the protective effect of immigrant selectivity.

Does Immigrant Selection Policy Matter? Labor Market Integration of Ethiopian Immigrants in Israel and the United States

Immigration policy debates currently focus on restricting immigration in favor of the highly skilled with the assumption that highly skilled immigrants will be better able to join the labor market and contribute to the economy. However, few studies empirically test the impact of immigrant selection policy by comparing labor market outcomes of immigrants from a single origin in multiple destinations. Fewer still address how race (specifically blackness) may impact the utility of these selection policies. This paper fills this gap by determining Ethiopian immigrants’ labor force participation, occupational status, and self-employment in the United States and Israel—countries with and without immigrant selection policies respectively. We find that Ethiopians experience similar labor market disadvantages relative to the native-born in both countries. These results indicate that rather than selection policy being the driver of labor market success, racial discrimination likely plays the largest role in determining Ethiopian (black) African immigrants’ labor market incorporation in both places.

CONCEPTUAL-STRATEGIC APPROACH TO STATE REGULATION OF MIGRATION PROCESSES

A new conceptual and strategic approach to state regulation of migration processes in Ukraine is substantiated. The content of the strategy in the practice of state regulation is determined with an emphasis on a certain sequence of actions. Analyzed the provisions of the Strategy of the state migration policy of Ukraine for the period up to 2025. A retrospective analysis of the strategic regulation of migration in Ukraine was carried out, which confirmed the long process of uncertainty of conceptual principles. A new conceptual approach to the strategic regulation of migration in Ukraine is proposed, which provides for the consideration of the management object of migration as a process. It provides for the allocation of tasks at the stages of capacity building and preparation for migration, relocation, adaptation and integration, re-emigration, integration of migratory capital, assimilation, acculturation, naturalization. The doctrine of strategy development should be socio-economic growth as a defining management principle. The aim of the strategy is the state regulation of migration processes on the basis of security, order and regulation with the establishment of migration as an asset of socio-economic growth. The main provisions of the Strategy of state regulation of migration processes of Ukraine for the period up to 2027 with the distribution of goals and objectives in the following areas: ensuring the positive impact of migration processes on socio-economic development; ensuring sufficient dynamics of socio-economic development to curb migration losses; ensuring sufficient dynamics of socio-economic development through selective immigration. The goals of the Strategy are highlighted: basic – accounting and statistical, protective, institutional and legal, information and infrastructure; stage – with a list of tasks in terms of stages of the migration process.

U.S. Occupational Mobility of Children of Immigrants Based on Parents' Origin-Country Occupation.

This study provides a national-level assessment of occupational mobility and early-career attainment of children of immigrants based on parents' origin-country occupation. Exploiting unique aspects of the Educational Longitudinal Study, we examine how parent-child U.S. intergenerational occupational mobility patterns and child occupational attainment differ based on parental premigration occupational status (i.e., low- vs. high-skilled) and parental postmigration occupational mobility (i.e., upward, same, or downward). Our results suggest misestimation in intergenerational mobility research if parents' origin-country occupation is excluded. Including parents' origin-country occupation, we find that the children of immigrants are recovering from instances of parental occupational downgrading, building on parental advances, and advancing where parents could not. Furthermore, most children of immigrants do as well or better occupationally than children of non-Hispanic White natives. Strong educational investments help explain this advantage, particularly for children of high-skilled immigrants. However, results indicate that all children of immigrants would attain even more if they faced fewer postmigration barriers, especially children of low-skilled immigrants. These results advance immigrant selection and assimilation theories by demonstrating how pre- and postmigration factors influence occupational attainment of children of immigrants.

Immigrant selectivity, academic culture and college enrollment among Asian Americans

ABSTRACT Asian Americans have advantages across numerous indicators for educational attainment and upward mobility. While researchers acknowledge the contribution of positive selective migration in Asian Americans’ academic success, the relationship of selective migration with academic culture has not been clearly studied. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study and the Barro-Lee dataset, this study shows that Asian parents’ relative attainment (i.e. the high relative educational attainment of parents compared to their non-immigrant counterparts in sending countries) predicts their children’s advantage in college enrolment over whites. More importantly, a considerable portion of the advantage in college enrolment from parents’ relative attainment operates through youths’ academic culture (i.e. parental educational expectations and youths’ effort, school behaviours, and attitudes). Relative attainment explains the advantage in college enrolment over whites only for the 1.5-generation rather than second-generation Asian Americans. This suggests that change in Asian Americans’ academic outcomes across generations appears to be driven by different factors for each generation rather than by gradual declines in the levels of the same factors across generations.

Social Capital and Mobility: An Experimental Study

Theoretical models of social capital (David, Janiak, and Wasmer 2010; Bräuninger and Tolciu 2011) predict that communities may find themselves in one of two equilibria: one with a high level of local social capital and low migration or one with a low level of local social capital and high migration. There is empirical literature suggesting that immigrants who join communities high in social capital are more likely to invest in local social capital and that the whole community will then end up in the equilibrium with high local social capital and low migration. However, this literature suffers from the selection of immigrants, which makes the identification challenging. In order to test the causal influence of the initial level of local social capital, we take the setup used in the theoretical models into the laboratory. We treat some communities by increasing the initial level of social capital without affecting the equilibrium outcomes. We find that while most communities end up in one of the two equilibria predicted by the theoretical models, the treated communities are more likely to converge to the equilibrium with a high level of local social capital and low migration.

When Is Immigration Selection Discriminatory?

Managing global migration is one of the most pressing issues of our time. Traditionally, international law has not generally regulated immigration and citizenship law; it defers to state authority in setting up rules and procedures for entry into the territory and citizenry. The lack of clear regulation—and a commonly accepted methodology on how to evaluate discriminatory borders—creates acute problems in terms of protecting human rights, promoting state interests, and setting up international cooperation. Against this background, this essay offers a legal framework to examine when borders are discriminatory. It includes a three-step process that examines the goals, criteria, and means of immigration and citizenship selection. With almost 300 million international immigrants worldwide living outside their country of origin in 2020, developing such a framework has become an urgent need.

Country of Origin IQ and Muslim Percentage Predict Grade Point Average in School among 116 Immigrant Groups in Denmark

Immigrants to Western countries typically have worse social outcomes than natives, but country of origin immigrant groups differ widely. We studied school performance in Denmark for 116 immigrant groups measured by the grade point average (GPA) of the 9th grade exam at the end of compulsory schooling. General intelligence is a strong causal factor of school outcomes and life outcomes in general for individuals. We accordingly predicted that country of origin average intelligence (national IQ) will predict immigrant group outcomes. We furthermore included as covariates immigrant generation (first vs. second) as well as the Muslim percentage of country of origin. Results show that GPA in Denmark can be predicted by national IQ r = .47 (n = 81), Muslim percentage r = -.40 (n = 81), and educational selectivity of immigrants entering Denmark r = .35 (n = 71). Regression modeling indicated that each predictor is informative when combined. The final model explained 46.3% of the variance with first generation (binary) β = -0.65, βIQ = 0.29, βMuslim = -0.21, and β education selectivity index = 0.27 (all predictors p < .001, n = 97). Our results are in line with existing research on cognitive stratification and immigration.

Civic Integration in a Multi-National Context: Examining Québec’s “Values Test” for New Immigrants

On January 1st, 2020, the majority French-speaking Canadian province of Québec implemented a “values test” for prospective immigrants. Subject to virulent partisan debate for months prior to its introduction, the “test” is mandatory for many newcomers, and probes their views on secularism, same-sex marriage, gender (in)equality, religious symbols, and aspects of Québécois culture. The circumstances surrounding Québec’s new “values test” point to two fruitful avenues for research on civic integration policy. First, most such research focuses on policies developed by Western European nation-states. The Québec case invites new comparative questions. Whether and how the process of defining civic belonging is differing in countries — like Canada — where regional governments seeking to regulate immigrant selection and incorporation must navigate federal institutional and discursive structures? Second, although not entirely unique, the direct reference to “values” in Québec’s new policy demonstrates that, despite so often being framed by their political advocates as advancing a “liberal” commitment to “rights”, civic integration tests are becoming venues for the explicit promotion of “thick” and exclusionary notions of national identity. Based on a qualitative analysis of the parliamentary debates leading up to Québec’s “values test”, this paper unpacks the implications of this case for assessing the determinants and effects of civic integration policy in and beyond Europe.

Multicultural citizenship for the highly skilled? Naturalization, human capital, and the boundaries of belonging in Canada’s middle-class nation-building

Taking Canada as a widely envied and imitated example of liberal, “difference-blind” economic immigration, in this paper, I examine the permeability, constraints, and symbolic meaning of the different requirements of the naturalization process from the perspective of those who have undergone the process. Based on interviews with recently naturalized Canadians, my study reveals that the three steps of the application process – filing the application, studying the citizenship guide and sitting the test, attending the citizenship ceremony and swearing the citizenship oath – constitute mostly blurred boundaries for skilled and highly educated immigrants, with occasional bright boundaries related to management flaws, classed naturalization, and cultural biases. Specifically, immigrants endowed with valued forms of human capital are naturalizing fast and easily even if they are members of racial, ethnic or religious minorities. This underscores the strength of multiculturalism as national identity and ethos of societal integration. However, the attainment of citizenship in the multicultural nation does not come quasi-automatically as a right for everyone after years of lawful residency. Rather, it is granted as an earned privilege only to those who demonstrate the successful mastery of the skills and mindset of middle-class professionals. Since naturalization now operates along the same econocentric logic that governs immigrant selection through the points system, individuals admitted through non-economic streams, such as refugees and immigrants in the family class are increasingly struggling with the naturalization process. This raises questions about the implicit biases and new fault lines of seemingly difference-blind middle-class nation-building through immigration.

The importance of being African: public attitudes towards immigration selection in South Africa

ABSTRACT The African Union wants to make ‘being African' an important immigration admission criterion amongst its member states. This would be a large-scale change to border control in South Africa, altering the nation’s symbolic boundaries. But what do ordinary South Africans think about this change? And what are the determinants of public support for drawing boundaries in this way? Using data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey, this paper argues that social identity is one of the primary drivers of how people think about this issue. This outcome showcases the way identity politics drives South African attitudes towards border control.

An extended evaluation of the weathering hypothesis for birthweight

Background: Prior weathering research finds that US-born Black women experience more rapidly deteriorating birthweight outcomes at older ages than US-born White women. Objective: The present study extends this literature by evaluating maternal age–birthweight associations across a variety of racial/ethnic-nativity groups. Methods: Race/ethnicity-nativity stratified average marginal effects of maternal age on low and very low birthweight are estimated using data from 2014 through 2018 US cohort natality files. Results: Older maternal ages at birth are associated with higher probabilities of low and very low birthweight for most racial/ethnic-nativity groups. Consistent with the weathering hypothesis, birth at older maternal ages (e.g., 30‒34 or 40+) is more predictive of low and very low birthweight for US-born Black, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and US-born Mexican American women than for US-born Whites. In contrast, some foreign-born populations exhibit relatively weak relationships between maternal age and low birthweight, suggesting the role of healthy immigrant selection. Contribution: Some disadvantaged racial/ethnic-nativity groups ‒ US-born Black, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and US-born Mexican American women ‒ exhibit more rapid increases in the risk of low birthweight at older maternal ages than US-born White women. These patterns are consistent with the weathering hypothesis. Future research may benefit from using linked family data and sibling modeling approaches to estimate causal models of weathering.

Immigrant integration policies when regions decide ‘who comes in’: the case of Canadian provinces

ABSTRACT Using the Canadian case, this paper explores immigrant integration policies when Rokkan and non-Rokkan regions have immigrant selection capacities. By systematically documenting integration policies of all Canadian regions and by describing elites’ justifications for such policies between 2010 and 2018, we demonstrate that every region – including Quebec, which has a distinct language and culture – primarily focuses on economic immigrant integration. We show that regional elites justify these policies as part of their regional economic development strategies and that regional immigrant selection capacity is not considered as a cure-all solution for the contemporary challenges facing regions.

What does hospitality look like when immigrants are ‘wanted’? The case of the immigration selection process in Quebec, Canada

Recent scholarly work in the social sciences has engaged with the concept of hospitality in order to explore immigration dynamics, especially in relation to the situation of asylum-seekers. As an ambivalent concept, it captures the tension between, on the one hand, the act of hosting and welcoming foreigners and, on the other, controlling their entry. In this article, I reflect on the relevance of this concept for the study of the bureaucratic process of selecting qualified immigrants in Quebec, which aims to identify those future ‘skilled’ immigrants who would be most likely to integrate, both culturally and economically. These migrants, far from being unwanted, constitute the core of the federal and provincial immigration policies and the main mechanism through which a foreigner could obtain permanent residency in Canada. Through a fictional narrative based on my fieldwork with permanent residents living in Montreal, I show how the immigration selection system works in practice. Applied to the case of selected immigrants, the concept of hospitality forces us to distinguish practices from national discourses.

Fertility, migration, and altruism

AbstractMigration is a human capital investment in which parents bear costs and children share returns. Therefore, migrants from a population with heterogeneous intergenerational discount rates will self-select on intergenerational altruism. Intergenerational altruism and fertility are arguably linked, therefore immigrants might self-select on eventual fertility. Soviet Jews who migrated to Israel despite high migration costs averaged almost one child more than members of the same birth cohorts who migrated later, at lower cost. Distinguishing selection from treatment effects using mothers' age at migration, selection accounts for most of that difference (the proportion varies with specification), even with controls for religion and religiosity. Selection on fertility may have other explanations, including cultural preservation. To probe, we conduct an alternative empirical test of immigrant selection on altruism, finding that U.S. immigrants spend more time with grandchildren than do natives. Additionally, immigrant self-selection on fertility provides an alternative explanation for Chiswick's (1978, Journal of Political Economy86(5), 897–921) earnings-overtaking result.

Sanitation, Sanity, and (Moral) Suitability: The History of the Medical Inadmissibility of Immigrants into Canada

Study of the history of medical inadmissibility and deportation of Canadian immigrants uncovers three important themes as criteria for immigration selection and control: sanitation, sanity, and moral suitability. As the understanding of human health changed with history, so too did the basis for exclusion and deportation of Canadian immigrants for medical purposes. Immigration policy mirrored then current notions of health and disease, growing in complexity as immigration policy increased its selectivity contemporaneous to increasing immigration rates. Immigration control developed from simple quarantine measures to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases from other continents, to physical and mental health inspections to prevent the propagation of hereditary dysfunction, to selection of morally fit immigrants resembling Canadian values for easy assimilation into society. Physical, mental, and moral health were key criteria in the first century of Canadian immigration policy, highlighting Canada’s history of anti-immigrant sentiment through the medicalization of specific ethnic groups.

The Impact of Immigration on Wages, Internal Migration, and Welfare

AbstractThis article studies the impact of immigration on wages, internal migration, and welfare. Using U.S. Census data, I estimate a spatial equilibrium model where labour differs by skill level, gender, and nativity. Workers are heterogeneous in city preferences. Cities vary in productivity levels, housing prices, and amenities. I use the estimated model to assess the distributional consequences of several immigration policies. The results show that a skill selective immigration policy leads to welfare gains for low skill workers, but welfare losses for high skill workers. The negative impacts are more substantial among the incumbent high skill immigrants. Internal migration mitigates the initial negative impacts, particularity in cities where housing supplies are inelastic. However, the negative wage impacts on some workers intensify. This is because an out-migration of workers of a given type may raise the local wages for workers of that type, while reducing the local wages of workers with complementary characteristics. Overall, there are substantial variations in the welfare effects of immigration across and within cities. Further, I use the model to assess the welfare effects of the border wall between Mexico and the U.S. The results show that the potential benefits are significantly smaller than the proposed cost of construction.