Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nber.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 267 posts

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

#201

Post by JakeTheAndroid »

allovernow wrote: post #130
JakeTheAndroid wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, we see people in fairly terrible countries not relocate. Why haven't 80% of all Mexican or Central American citizens relocated to the US? Or conversely, why haven't tons of the homeless in the US made their way to Mexico? If these countries are really significantly worse, and that is the only factor pushing normal people to relocate, then we should be seeing massive population movements all the time. Instead,…

>Why haven't 80% of all Mexican or Central American citizens relocated to the US? Because we [rightfully, as this thread suggests] restrict border crossings. >Or conversely, why haven't tons of the homeless in the US made their way to Mexico? Because homeless people understand that the minimum protections and niche lifestyle they have here are orders of magnitude better than a violent third world country. >then we sh…

> Because we [rightfully, as this thread suggests] restrict border crossings.

We see plenty of illegal immigration. So much so that some people want to build a wall, as if that is a meaningful control. If all it takes is a country to be worse than the US like the parent states, then we should expect much higher rates of legal immigration applications and significantly higher rates of illegal immigration. The argument was that it only takes one metric to convince a regular person to move, and I reject that notion.

> Because homeless people understand that the minimum protections and niche lifestyle they have here are orders of magnitude better than a violent third world country.

Again, this is in response to the idea that all it takes to convince a person to relocate is for a situation to be worse than another situation. Theoretically, due to cheaper cost of living and less focus on technology/high skill jobs, Mexico or Central America would provide a homeless person more opportunity to at least survive compared to the US. But, since that is not the only factor in relocating, people don't do that en masse.

> Considering the difficulty of illegally crossing the border for a poor South American, we are seeing just that. There's another selection bias here - those who are competent are less likely to risk illegal entry because they understand life as an illegal immigrant is difficult.

And this brings us back to the beginning, where I don't think all it takes is a place to be sufficiently bad enough compared to the US to get them to move. It takes a host of factors, and some of those factors are personal drive and aspirations, and a fairly high tolerance for risk. Both of those align with an entrepreneur, which is basically the American Dream.

Thus, we then see upward mobility from these same demographics.

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

#202

Post by toasterlovin »

JakeTheAndroid wrote: post #118
toasterlovin wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it takes a particular form of resourcefulness and ambition. Or your home country just needs to be significantly worse.

I mean, we see people in fairly terrible countries not relocate. Why haven't 80% of all Mexican or Central American citizens relocated to the US? Or conversely, why haven't tons of the homeless in the US made their way to Mexico? If these countries are really significantly worse, and that is the only factor pushing normal people to relocate, then we should be seeing massive population movements all the time. Instead,…

There are other selection effects, as well. If you have a large population of young, single males with poor employment prospects, there's not much to keep them attached to their home country. If all they have to do is walk across a border (which they can probably muster the resources to attempt, as opposed to a transcontinental voyage), then there's a huge pull to immigrate to the US. In a circumstance like this, there would be a selection effect for the least capable young men (since more capable young men with better prospects would stay behind).

In my opinion, this is probably what explains the vast divergence between the professions that immigrants from Latin American end up in vs. the professions that immigrants from Asia end up in.

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

#203

Post by twoheadedboy »

leetcrew wrote: post #77
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…

> 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 teaching job are not even qualified to have that 100-300k job. I don't think the two have much t…

I used to think this was true, until I got older and realized just how bad I am at writing, and how not everything is just math and science.

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

#204

Post by skissane »

munk-a wrote: post #181
akamoonknight wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That brings up a slightly different aspect in my mind, that children of immigrants might be more than likely to be surrounded by large amounts of family members which probably tends to have a positive effect?

This is probably a quite important point. I think that the classic "western" approach to family residences is becoming more obviously damaging to everyone involved as time goes by. Growing up in a multi-generational household is a significantly different experience compared to having either two parents - or having one primary parent and a bread earner. Being exposed to more diverse opinions on a regular basis is prob…

> and living in a household with lower overall stress (since there are more people to bear the burden) is probably healthy.

Some people have a lot of conflict with their parents and/or parents-in-law. But, since they live in different residences and only see them once every few weeks, it is manageable. If they were under the same roof, the stress might be a lot worse.

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

#205

Post by toasterlovin »

JakeTheAndroid wrote: post #118
toasterlovin wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it takes a particular form of resourcefulness and ambition. Or your home country just needs to be significantly worse.

I mean, we see people in fairly terrible countries not relocate. Why haven't 80% of all Mexican or Central American citizens relocated to the US? Or conversely, why haven't tons of the homeless in the US made their way to Mexico? If these countries are really significantly worse, and that is the only factor pushing normal people to relocate, then we should be seeing massive population movements all the time. Instead,…

> If these countries are really significantly worse, and that is the only factor pushing normal people to relocate, then we should be seeing massive population movements all the time.

This is not true, because the socioeconomic status of people in a given country is not a flat line. Many Mexicans live what Americans would describe as comfortable, middle class lives. But, because Mexico is less prosperous than the U.S. per capita, there is a whole arm of the Mexican income distribution that is shifted into what Americans would recognize as extreme poverty. The Mexicans occupying this part of the income distribution are the ones leaving.

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

#206

Post by czbond »

jvanderbot wrote: post #47
harias wrote: post #2

Title editorialized from "Intergenerational Mobility of Immigrants in the US over Two Centuries" Abstract: >Using millions of father-son pairs spanning more than 100 years of US history, we find that children of immigrants from nearly every sending country have higher rates of upward mobility than children of the US-born. Immigrants’ advantage is similar historically and today despite dramatic shifts in sending count…

So, the American Dream as upward mobility for established citizens was never true?

I read this more as it can be easier to move from really dire straits 3rd world country to middle class America. Whereas it can be harder to go from middle class America to Upper class.

3rd World -> Middle Class America takes hard work (once you're in America) Middle Class America -> Upper Class takes strategic, risk, and hard work

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

#207

Post by tartoran »

m0zg wrote: post #169
toasterlovin wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a huge asterisk to this selection effect, though: illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America.

It doesn't change the outcome though: even illegals are more likely to be upwardly mobile _from their lower baseline_. They can't take anything for granted the way a native would. I observe this in my (upper middle class) son: he thinks he's set for life, and doesn't put in _any_ effort whatsoever. I told him he's on his own when he's 19, he's a mere 3 years away from that mark, and it hasn't yet sunk in. He thinks h…

Are you an immigrant yourself or a child of immigrant parents? Yes, because immigrants on average have it harder they also work harder. Usually their children reap more benefits but the children's children flake out. Not sure how much of a trend this is but I've noticed this...

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

#208

Post by toasterlovin »

JakeTheAndroid wrote: post #201
allovernow wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why haven't 80% of all Mexican or Central American citizens relocated to the US? Because we [rightfully, as this thread suggests] restrict border crossings. >Or conversely, why haven't tons of the homeless in the US made their way to Mexico? Because homeless people understand that the minimum protections and niche lifestyle they have here are orders of magnitude better than a violent third world country. >then we sh…

> Because we [rightfully, as this thread suggests] restrict border crossings. We see plenty of illegal immigration. So much so that some people want to build a wall, as if that is a meaningful control. If all it takes is a country to be worse than the US like the parent states, then we should expect much higher rates of legal immigration applications and significantly higher rates of illegal immigration. The argument…

> The argument was that it only takes one metric to convince a regular person to move

No, this is not at all the argument I made. I was pointing out that built-in appetite for risk (or being a go-getter or whatever) is not the only explanation for why someone would come to the U.S. illegally. That the conditions in their home country shift the risk-reward equation so that more people are willing to immigrate than would otherwise.

If everything were simply about appetite for risk (or being a go-getter), then you would expect immigration from Canada to take place at similar rates as immigration from Mexico (since incomes in the U.S. are significantly higher than in Canada). But you don't see that, because the delta between Canada and the U.S. is way smaller than it is between Mexico and the U.S., and so the risk/reward equation doesn't work out for nearly as many Canadians.

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

#209

Post by rayiner »

kaitai wrote: post #132
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…

This is definitely worth thinking about, and in particular to put it into today's political context, Nigerian-Americans have the most PhDs per capita of any immigrant or native-born group -- and yet Nigeria was just put under travel restrictions. Having friends & colleagues from both American Black and African and Black Caribbean backgrounds has given me a tiny glimpse into some of the difference in background and tr…

I was with you until the last point. The resources are not artificially limited. The US spends almost a trillion tax dollars each year on education. We’re at over 4.1% of GDP spent on education (excluding private money), well above Germany, Spain or Italy (about 3.6%), about the same as the UK (4.2%), and not too far below France (4.6%). https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/public-spending-on-educati... Those are the five largest EU countries comprising more than 2/3 of the EU population. We also spend more than Japan, Ireland, and about the same as Korea.

I think we absolutely need to spend money to address disparities in the experience of African American kids in this country. I think the wrong way to do that is to funnel more money into disproportionately white teachers and school administrators. Direct cash payments to inner city families I think would go a lot further.

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

#210

Post by jvanderbot »

czbond wrote: post #206
jvanderbot wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, the American Dream as upward mobility for established citizens was never true?

I read this more as it can be easier to move from really dire straits 3rd world country to middle class America. Whereas it can be harder to go from middle class America to Upper class. 3rd World -> Middle Class America takes hard work (once you're in America) Middle Class America -> Upper Class takes strategic, risk, and hard work

Adding: I think there is some selection bias. Those who self-select to move to the US probably already have motivation, means, etc to get to the US and the intelligence to manage the complicated immigration process. Then, there's the "burn the ships" part, where you simply must succeed because there's no option of leaving.
Post reply on HN