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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

#101

Post by rayiner »

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…

That still provides profound insights into the nature of economic mobility. If children of immigrants have greater economic mobility than children of natives, that means economic structures beyond people’s control are at the very least not dispositive. I.e. if the factors that keep people born in the bottom quantile more likely to stay there were purely structural, such as inability of poorer people to afford housing in better school districts, then it wouldn’t matter whether parents are ambitious and effort full.

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

#103

Post by datashow »

jbay808 wrote: post #72
justin66 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Canadians that sufficiently didnt fit into Canadian culture, or found something immanently attractive about US life (at least the perception of US life)... Or were just good enough to be offered a high paying job outside their country, such that emigratin…

Yup. Many Canadians I know in the US would love to move back to Canada if they could find a job there that would pay a similar amount.

Searching for job in a different country, moving to another country for the job, these are by definition ambitious.

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

#104

Post by sjg007 »

icsllaf wrote: post #35
TimPC wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There might be some hard to account for factors. Many immigrants end up in worse jobs than they had in their home countries. Some doctors end up driving cabs for instance. If your parent is a doctor with the income of a cab driver I'd expect you to have more upward mobility than if your parent is a cab driver with the income of a cab driver.

Also, there's a factor of where the people live. Someone who is a cab driver in Los Angeles might be making the same money as someone who is a mechanic in Nebraska. But the possibility of upwards mobility and higher education in Los Angeles is much higher than that of rural areas. Most immigrants move to large metropolitan areas than the countryside.

We know that some metro regions have greater upward economic mobility for sure. I think the Bay area has the highest mobility.

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

#105

Post by tathougies »

oblio wrote: post #49
dpark wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what “strong” and “weak” mean. Should we also define what constitutes “hard times”? Or what “men” are? If you have an issue with the statement, just say it. Don’t hide your criticism behind supposed ambiguity.

Ok, easy, I've seen this statement used several times to criticize younger generations because things were harder "back in my day". I think that in aggregate, generations are more or less the same, so I don't agree with it.

> Ok, easy, I've seen this statement used several times to criticize younger generations because things were harder "back in my day".

Except for some very specific times in history, it is almost universally true that the older generation had harder times. Human progress is -- in the grand scheme of things -- a march towards much easier lives.

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

#106

Post by screye »

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…

It's hard to argue for nature when the immigrants come from among the most diverse ethnic groups. There is literally no homogeneity among them apart from the fact that their parents weren't American citizens.

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

#107

Post by jdkee »

tropo wrote: post #80
rhacker wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 education in the USA is underfunded, then education is underfunded in pretty much every country. The USA pays more per student than Japan, Sweden, Germany, and Korea. Look: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp So that isn't the problem, at least relative to the rest of the world. The worst schools in the USA seem to spend the most. Maybe the money is anti-educational, being used to purchase distracti…

The countries you cite are all relatively homogenous. The U.S. has greater disparities in education funding due to funding coming primarily from local sources rather than national.

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

#108

Post by namirez »

godelski wrote: post #100
nostrademons wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or as Vincent said in Gattaca: "There is no gene for the human spirit."

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

#109

Post by tathougies »

vparikh wrote: post #67

Being a first generation immigrant myself (parents immigrated to America in 1975) I can give a few cultural reasons: 1. Stable two parent home - my parents lived together and shielded us from any arguments/disagreements they had and presented a stable unified upbringing 2. My father had a degree in Microbiology, but when he first migrated had to take a less paying job due to language/racism. My mother had a high scho…

You are basically me. My dad also had a microbiology degree but his first job in this country was a waiter and janitor. This ended up turning into basically slave, unpaid labor, which he managed to escape thanks to my mother.

My mother had an economics and poli sci degree but worked as a secretary. She decided to become a teacher and had to her entire university again at night because California wouldn't accept her Indian degrees. My brother and I spent many nights in her college classes doing our homework under her desk. Really taught us the importance of hard work to get what we want.

After waitering, my dad had all sorts of odd jobs -- real estate agent, garbage man, computer guy -- until finally getting a job in pharmaceuticals thanks to my mom getting the HR ladies at her office (while she was a secretary) to review his resume and help him.

Academic expectations were absolutely the same. Even A minus was not accepted.

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

#110

Post by bsanr2 »

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…

I think you see a similar phenomenon across many aspects of contemporary American life. We've found inferior-yet-workable ways to route around the increasingly dire financial situation of the average family, often by lowering standards, paying with debt, or simply with outright theft. 30 years ago, Sheila may have driven her new car to college (both of which she's paying for with a summer job), picking up a few new cassette tapes along the way. Today, she'll drive her used car, financed for 5 years, to a college she's paying for with tens of thousands of dollars in loans, and she'll just pull up some YouTube videos or songs that she's pirated to pass the time.

I don't know if "competition" is a panacea, but there is definitely something wrong with how a lot of our institutions function.

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