Live data from Hacker News

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

nber.org

151–160 of 267 posts

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

#151

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…

Yes, the bar has been going higher ever since (we might even say prohibitively so), however we know that not all immigrants go to the US through official means.

It's a different kind of high-pass filter (not meaning necessarily that's easier).

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

#152

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,…

> Why haven't X% of all "persons from country" relocated to "Country"?

We don't see high numbers (let's say, above 50%) even when the push is high enough and their movements are legal.

The majority of the Syrian population is still inside Syria as an example.

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

#153
post #145

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, and biased against people who are likely to be a drain on public assistance. Clearly not the cause. The USA has accepted many waves of refugees. For example the Cambodian boat refugees. They arrived with n…

Refugees account for about 10% of immigration to the US.

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

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Black SWE here, grew up on the west side of Chicago, I don't think most white people understand how bad the literacy situation is. I could read competently before I even got to school and I went to grammar school in the 90s. First day of first grade, I found out no one could competently read a sentence. In fact, whole school (which has closed) was on this remedial education program called Advanced Directives or somet…

This. Systemic racism ... aaaand ... loser gangster culture. Would love to see the numbers on whether it's easier to become a chartered accountant or a rap artist. I'm seeing the other side of this, recently (disadvantaged white people). It's astonishing the loser mentalities and habits that many disadvantaged children learn from their early caregivers and peer group. As middle to upper middle class people, we often…

I think of it more as the bullying culture. I got bullied a lot for simply looking “nerdy” and doing my homework. Affects me to this day. It was “cool” to be dumb and flunk out. That’s a recipe for a system that holds people down.

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

#156
post #136
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. A self-selecting sample if there ever was one. Immigrating and deciding to live in another country takes a lot determination. If you take ambitious and motivated black parents in America I am quite sure their children far outcompete the averages.

How long in the family history does it take to lose that ambition/motivation? The colonists back in the day had to have had those same qualities. Maybe even more so with all the added risk and dangers of the time.

Afaik, next generation takes up values and habits of society they are in and their children are like everybody else.

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

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There's a different form of positive selection bias for that: to survive in a country where you're there illegally, cut off from many high-paying jobs because of that, and may be deported at any time, it takes a particular form of resourcefulness and ambition. You'd expect these people to have fewer book smarts than highly-educated Indian and Chinese immigrants, but perhaps more street smarts. And to the extent that…

> There's a different form of positive selection bias for that: to survive in a country where you're there illegally, cut off from many high-paying jobs because of that, and may be deported at any time, it takes a particular form of resourcefulness and ambition.

We can replace "illegal immigration" in the above statement with any other illegal activities and it will still hold true.

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

#159

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's exactly what it's saying, and I think it's an important message to get our with all of the propaganda against immigrants right now. These are highly motivated people, not lazy slobs like some people paint them.

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

#160
post #153
post #145

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. Clearly not the cause. The USA has accepted many waves of refugees. For example the Cambodian boat refugees. They arrived with n…

Refugees account for about 10% of immigration to the US.

True.

But the fact that upward mobility is strongly evident among refugee groups says that a theory for upward mobility among children of immigrants should explain why it still happens despite all of the disadvantages of being refugees.

Post reply on HN