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Assimilation, human capital, and earnings of minorities in the United States in relation to social context
a multi-level analysis of economic attainment of Chinese workers
xii, 142 leaves : illustrations ; 28 cm.
Most conventional studies of the economic adaptation of Chinese and other Asian immigrants have sought to explain variation in earnings attainment in terms mainly of individual characteristics of earnings. This dissertation holds the view that earnings attainment is only partially explained by individual characteristics. The conventional practice of using individual or aggregate measures in models of earning attainment overlooks the importance of drawing on both individual and community-level data to test hypothesized relationships. Using data from the 1% and 5% PUMS of the 1990 Census, this dissertation performs HLM (Hierarchical Linear Model) analyses of the impacts of individual and contextual characteristics of Chinese, Japanese, black, and Mexican male workers on their levels of individual earnings. The macro-level effects on income, based on theories of the ethnic enclave, residential segregation, assimilation, and global discrimination, are explored. In comparison with Chinese and Japanese workers, blacks and Mexicans are more characterized by high levels of residential segregation and global discrimination; their economic performance may be more heavily accounted for by these macro level variables. One of the macro-level variables, the percentage of ethnic workers in professional occupations, was found to consistently and positively affect annual earnings for each of the minority groups. Other contextual variables do not seem to operate the same for all minority groups. The variables of residential isolation and the percentage of minority populations, however, have influential and negative effects on earnings for black and Mexican workers. The presence of an ethnic enclave economy, measured by the percentage of self-employed Mexicans, only affects earnings for Mexican workers. Regarding human capital factors, Chinese, Japanese, black and Mexican workers significantly increased their incomes if they were better educated, married, and had labor force experience. These human capital hypotheses were firmly sustained. In comparison, the assimilation hypothesis is only supported among Chinese and Mexican workers. Findings reported in this dissertation indicate a successful integration of individual and contextual variables in analyses of individual earnings. These results contribute to the understanding of the impacts on earnings of the ethnic enclave economy, global discrimination, residential deprecations and the climate represented by professional workers.
Issued also on microfiche from University Microfilm Inc.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-142).