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Children of immigrants have higher rates of upward mobility than US-born

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Re: Children of immigrants have higher rates of upward mobility than US-born

#91

Post by tathougies »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #57

I often tell people to watch out for selection bias. Immigrants are a distinctly unique people. They're not just members of their foreign racial/national group, they're members of their foreign racial/national group with the ambitions/motivations to leave. To make the abstract concrete. Canadians living in the US are often thought to be "just like" Canadians living in Canada. But they're often not. Often they're the…

> So this study is kind of saying "The children of ambitious and effortful parents have higher rates of upward mobility than the general populace of US people"

But this is also important to note, as the common zeitgeist of the day says that upward mobility is impossible, but it is clear that with ambitious and effortful parents, children can have higher rates of social mobility. That is encouraging?

Re: Children of immigrants have higher rates of upward mobility than US-born

#92

Post by allenu »

eralps wrote: post #82
allenu wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the "didn't fit into Canadian culture, or found something imminently attractive about US life" may be reading too much into things. It's more like those people just found good jobs in the US that weren't available in their country. I'm a Canadian and found a great job in the US and moved down. I didn't move down thinking the culture would be better and then found work.

> I think the "didn't fit into Canadian culture, or found something imminently attractive about US life" may be reading too much into things. That is probably true for Canadians. It is definitely easier, faster, and more accessible for a Canadian to immigrate to the US. Fewer reasons can be enough. For immigrants from other countries even though good jobs is one of the priorities it does not always justify immigratin…

Oh I totally agree with you about immigration from other countries not necessarily being about finding jobs immediately. My family (including me) immigrated to Canada from another country (a third world country) because the opportunities would be better. I can't imagine us having not done that and what kind of life I would be living today.

Re: Children of immigrants have higher rates of upward mobility than US-born

#93

Post by Reedx »

rayiner wrote: post #12

It's particularly interesting to look at the mobility statistics of asian americans (many of whom are also immigrants) as a category: http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/assets/documents/race... . If you look at table 1 on page 56, you can see that for white americans, the probability of a child ending up in the top quantile of income where a parent is in the bottom quantile of income is 11% (about half the probab…

Asians also have the highest median income in the U.S.[1]

Culture seems to play a significant role in their success. Notably they tend to focus on education and prioritize it over other things[2].

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/233324/median-household-...

2. https://www.wsj.com/articles/culture-explains-asians-educati...

Re: Children of immigrants have higher rates of upward mobility than US-born

#94

Post by tathougies »

nostrademons wrote: post #64
maerF0x0 wrote: post #57

I often tell people to watch out for selection bias. Immigrants are a distinctly unique people. They're not just members of their foreign racial/national group, they're members of their foreign racial/national group with the ambitions/motivations to leave. To make the abstract concrete. Canadians living in the US are often thought to be "just like" Canadians living in Canada. But they're often not. Often they're the…

There's also significant selection bias on the entry side. U.S. immigration policies are heavily biased towards people with unique skills, high levels of education, and a fair amount of money in their home country, and biased against people who are likely to be a drain on public assistance. That means that most hyphenated-Americans have already passed two significant high-pass filters: they have to be willing to upro…

> and they have to bring enough to the table to convince U.S. immigration to let them in.

Eh... my parents came with zero dollars to this country as part of family migration (zero due to currency export restrictions from their original country).

Re: Children of immigrants have higher rates of upward mobility than US-born

#95

Post by bsanr2 »

codingslave wrote: post #40
bsanr2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something that many HNers will probably be embarrased to admit being surprised by is how higher education attainment rates for immigrants don't exclude African immigrants. In fact, black immigrants from Africa and the West Indies have among the highest degree attainment rate of any group. This belies the lower college-and-advanced-degree attainment rate for black Americans as a whole. All of this seems to suggest tha…

Most of the reason for immigrant children doing so well is the fact that immigrants are often more driven, ambitious, and at the top of their peer group. So the USA gets a biased sample of immigrants from countries like Nigeria. None of this is happening in a vacuum, and interpreting it as such is misguided propaganda.

I hear this a lot, but I don't know if it's particularly true. For black immigrants, I find more compelling the notion that their comfort with, and belief in, pursuing higher education isn't rocked so profoundly by white supremacy, as is so for native blacks. They're simply not as exposed to anti-black messaging, from the history of discrimination in America to the demographically disproportionate reporting of crime in American media. Add to that the arguably superior education of black Caribbeans, who are free to support higher standards with the requisite resources and are not stymied by regressive funding policy, and you have a population that is often more prepared for the rigors of higher education.

Which is pretty damning of the way America treats its own people.

Edit: I want to add that this is not simply my own speculation; this is the explanation that I've heard in part from several friends and acquaintances. They're often horrified by the leniency of standards for even high performing American students, and they will often state that they are not "black" in the way that native African Americans are, and are therefore not subject to the same biases and limitations.

Re: Children of immigrants have higher rates of upward mobility than US-born

#96

Post by rayiner »

GuiA wrote: post #53
oblio wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define weak and strong, though?

This quote is often used as a dog whistle by far right groups. In their definition, “weak” is caring about others, providing services to citizens like healthcare and education etc. “Strong” is then the Trumpian ideal of a successful self made business man who takes no nonsense from no one and gets things done regardless of their snowflake feelings (sic).

So? I find the quote very compelling as someone from a family of immigrants. My cousins left Bangladesh as children. Their parents left professional jobs to take service jobs (“hard times”). But the kids worked hard, majored in engineering, science, business, medicine, and accounting (“strong men and women”), and secured professional jobs for themselves (“good times”). I see the next generation being bombarded with ideas to make them weak. Culture that emphasizes personal fulfillment, pernicious individualism, hedonism, rebelling against authority, etc. And I’m profoundly afraid of the “weak men and women” that might follow in the next generation.

Re: Children of immigrants have higher rates of upward mobility than US-born

#97

Post by bsanr2 »

naravara wrote: post #54
codingslave wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the reason for immigrant children doing so well is the fact that immigrants are often more driven, ambitious, and at the top of their peer group. So the USA gets a biased sample of immigrants from countries like Nigeria. None of this is happening in a vacuum, and interpreting it as such is misguided propaganda.

Immigrants are also forced to develop their own peer communities and support networks since mainstream culture, stores, and media don't cater to them. Growing up I was surprised by how low the expectations were for my American classmates from their parents. A "goof off" from my community would be struggling to get Bs while a goof from the non-immigrant groups would be struggling to pass at all. And being a "straight-…

That educational attainment was a priority for my extended family, and that there are high-profile fights for educational equity in cities across the country, lead me to believe that even non-immigrant black families and communities do have similar values. I wonder how much resource access, rather than intention, matters.

Re: Children of immigrants have higher rates of upward mobility than US-born

#98

Post by sjg007 »

rhacker wrote: post #65
bsanr2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something that many HNers will probably be embarrased to admit being surprised by is how higher education attainment rates for immigrants don't exclude African immigrants. In fact, black immigrants from Africa and the West Indies have among the highest degree attainment rate of any group. This belies the lower college-and-advanced-degree attainment rate for black Americans as a whole. All of this seems to suggest tha…

Indeed. While you're covering multiple topics, I wanted to touch on the education specifically. I think a huge reason for our problematic education system is lack of competition for teaching jobs. If there's a job at a startup that's willing to pay someone for math at $100k (avg in mixed locations) - $300k (avg in silicon valley) how are we ever going to have excellent math teachers. The people competing for a 50k te…

>If there's a job at a startup that's willing to pay someone for math at $100k (avg in mixed locations) - $300k (avg in silicon valley) how are we ever going to have excellent math teachers. The people competing for a 50k teaching job are not even qualified to have that 100-300k job.

This a false dichotomy. For one, teachers in SV can make 100k. Second the skills required to be an effective teacher are not the same as a good math major. They just aren't. We've all had the brilliant professor who can't teach. But we should pay teachers because good teachers are professionals and they should be rewarded appropriately.

The problem with education is that we treat each kid the same. But actually every kid is different and has unique needs and thus requires a personalized learning program. When they are young these are social and behavioral. As they get older they can be subject specific. An individualized program could be aligned with a cohort in a class setting but you really need individual tutoring to address the child's specific needs and deficits. A good teacher is able to recognize these needs and give them the education they need.

Re: Children of immigrants have higher rates of upward mobility than US-born

#99

Post by datashow »

tathougies wrote: post #91
maerF0x0 wrote: post #57

I often tell people to watch out for selection bias. Immigrants are a distinctly unique people. They're not just members of their foreign racial/national group, they're members of their foreign racial/national group with the ambitions/motivations to leave. To make the abstract concrete. Canadians living in the US are often thought to be "just like" Canadians living in Canada. But they're often not. Often they're the…

> So this study is kind of saying "The children of ambitious and effortful parents have higher rates of upward mobility than the general populace of US people" But this is also important to note, as the common zeitgeist of the day says that upward mobility is impossible, but it is clear that with ambitious and effortful parents, children can have higher rates of social mobility. That is encouraging?

Not really encouraging. You can't make parents more ambitious and effortful.

This is basically saying personal efforts matter. I believe this is not most upward mobility advocators want to hear.

Re: Children of immigrants have higher rates of upward mobility than US-born

#100

Post by godelski »

nostrademons wrote: post #87
namirez wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's also significant selection bias on the entry side. U.S. immigration policies are heavily biased towards people with unique skills, high levels of education, and a fair amount of money in their home country Categorically false! Most of immigration to the US is family based; actually about two-third of them. source: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/17/key-facts-a...

You take an initial immigrant who gets in because of the merit categories and then have them bring over all their family members, whose gene pool ends up in the U.S? Whose family values? This article is about upward mobility in the children of immigrants. What traits do children get from their parents? Most people would say it's nature (their genes) and nurture (their upbringing). All of these are widely shared with…

As far as I'm aware, there's no strong link between motivation and generics.
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