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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

#221
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know how relevant that is. Some people will always get divorced and while there are ways to address that (and, multi-generational houses that lower the stress of child rearing may reduce it) I think we can treat them as independent and still see benefits in multi-generational household. Instead of having either one parent or the other and placing the full responsibility on that single person, a multi-generational household of a divorcee might still include that person's parents and unmarried siblings to help raise the child.

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

#222
Given how strict the immigration rule has become I'm not surprised, especially for those who work in tech/academics. Also UPWARD is relative, which means many immigrants start from scratch and there's just not enough time to gain too much wealth and social status, thus makes it easier for their children to go 'upwards', while it may just be their children are living like average Americans.

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

#223
post #129

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,…

Actually a significant percentage have. The US is 16.7% Hispanic. That is over 50 million people. The population of Mexico is a little over 120 million. I would bet that if there were no barriers to immigration then you would see a significantly higher Hispanic population in the US. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Hispanic_and...

Many Hispanics didn't immigrate to the US. Their ancestors were already there when the US conquered California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Colorado from Mexico.

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

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using the modern populations of these countries is disingenuous, you need to consider recent historical immigration rates (legal and illegal). This is like saying there are 42 million Black Americans and most Black people have West African roots, so Roughly 20% of Nigeria has moved to the US. As posted below, historically Mexicans have been in the US forever, and the US annexed large parts of Mexico relatively early…

> historically Mexicans have been in the US forever As recently as 1940, Hispanics made up only 1.5% of the US. Population. As of 2010, they made up 16.3% of the U.S. population (about 50 million people). As a point of reference, Canada has a population of about 37 million people and the UK has a population of 63 million people. So we have imported roughly an entire Canada/UK's worth of people from Latin America. As…

Wait until you hear about how much the population of white people increased in the 17th century.

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

#225
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually a significant percentage have. The US is 16.7% Hispanic. That is over 50 million people. The population of Mexico is a little over 120 million. I would bet that if there were no barriers to immigration then you would see a significantly higher Hispanic population in the US. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Hispanic_and...

Many Hispanics didn't immigrate to the US. Their ancestors were already there when the US conquered California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Colorado from Mexico.

[deleted]

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

#226
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fi…

But the vast majority of our primary and secondary school funding comes from local property taxes, no? That creates situations where wealthy districts have excess resources, while poorer districts are artificially limited.

Something as simple as bundling up school funds to the state level and redistributing similar per-pupil funds back to districts might help to close the gap - with no change in total expenditure.

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

#227
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, 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…

> 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...

But you need one family member in the US for you to pull in the rest, and the first one tends to have

> unique skills, high levels of education, and a fair amount of money in their home country

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

#228

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…

The only Canadians I know who aren't retired and work in the US are there for the money. Though I'm not sure what not fitting into Canadian culture can even mean, to be honest.

I think it's way more complex than you describe: Canadians don't go through all the hoops to become American residents in order to work at Walmart... But I think South Americans probably would...

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

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fi…

But the vast majority of our primary and secondary school funding comes from local property taxes, no? That creates situations where wealthy districts have excess resources, while poorer districts are artificially limited. Something as simple as bundling up school funds to the state level and redistributing similar per-pupil funds back to districts might help to close the gap - with no change in total expenditure.

That’s not true. Localities provide 45% of school funding, while states provide another 45%, and the federal government provides about 10%: https://www.lincolninst.edu/sites/default/files/pubfiles/fut...

Local funding is in fact uneven. But state and federal funding is primarily directed to eliminating those disparities: https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/alfresco...

> The paper then examines changes in finances over time—both within and across states— and evaluates how spending levels have changed for school districts that serve students of different races. Spending differences have largely disappeared. Spending levels across districts have converged; most remaining differences in spending are between rather than within states.

Obviously Kansas still spends less than California, but everything is much cheaper in Kansas too.

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

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fi…

But the vast majority of our primary and secondary school funding comes from local property taxes, no? That creates situations where wealthy districts have excess resources, while poorer districts are artificially limited. Something as simple as bundling up school funds to the state level and redistributing similar per-pupil funds back to districts might help to close the gap - with no change in total expenditure.

The gap is there in DC, which gets special federal funding. DC is spending over $30,000 per student. DC schools are so bad that you should wonder if excess funding somehow makes things worse.
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