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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

#161

Post by DiffEq »

burnte wrote: post #159
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'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.

There is no one type of "immigrant" though either and thus the need for a selection criteria.

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

#162

Post by watwut »

tathougies wrote: post #105
oblio wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Those very specific periods are quite often. For huge amount of world population, it is right now.

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

#163

Post by Nasrudith »

btilly wrote: post #145
nostrademons wrote: post #64

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…

Reminds me of one theory behind the success of immigrant "model minority" groups dating back to 19th century Jewish emigrants from pogrums being their community support network and a cultural values towards education. Of course none of this is in a vacuum and depends upon the host society and reaction.

Disclaimer: Self determination and environmental determination both have their limits and maladaptive behaviors may have roots in trauma. It isn't meant to be any statement of intrinsic vice or virtue.

I could see easily how refugees forced to cooperate to survive and fleeing horrifying death would support one another when in an unfamiliar new country and knowing there is no hope in heading back.

I wonder how relevant the "hedonic treadmill" is to the phenomenon as well. Motivation and incentives having a positive impact on success is no surprise and unfortunately it isn't as easy or simple as just telling people to get motivated, making things better for them if they succeed, nor making things worse if they don't. Nor even more slippery sloped approaches like propaganda for social goods "Black Mirroring" a metric feedback loop that would be dystopian even if it worked.

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

#164

Post by Koremat6666 »

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…

Research related to IQ (which is not a very useful thing to be honest) and income levels have shown that over time the immigrant communities tend to regress towards the mean values of their home country. Indian immigrants being the only exception of this observation.

Majority Indians come to USA on H1B and student visas

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

#165

Post by bsanr2 »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #146
acephal wrote: post #140

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…

>aaaand ... loser gangster culture.

No. You have parents that are not able to attend to pre-school education, whether it's a time or money issue, or even an education issue themselves. And then you have children, let down by parents who were let down by society, who are ashamed of how far behind they are.

The idea that you can further shame people into "shaping up" is farcical. Please stop being part of the problem.

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

#166

Post by 908B64B197 »

Is this really a surprise?

There's so much more to capital than assets! While often asset-poor, a lot of immigrants to the west have considerable intellectual capital and good social capital among their community. Even when foreign diplomas are judged worthless, the fact that the individual was able to acquire them in his country still probably places him in the top percentile of his home nation. And the immigrant community often serves as a pipeline for employment, no matter what the skill level.

Even if two third (that's the number claimed) came through family migration, it doesn't really matter as the first person that's sponsoring them had to get selected in the first place through employment. Even if the initial sponsor went to some diversity lottery, I suppose applying and meeting all requirements still requires a little bit of education and some financial resources to send the application in the first place.

I would be curious to see the breakdown per initial immigration category and country, with folks coming in from family based immigration counted as the category of the initial sponsor.

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

#167

Post by losvedir »

babesh wrote: post #144
babesh wrote: 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...

And from the article, over 60% is of Mexican ancestry. So over 30 million versus the population of Mexico at a little over 120 million. Roughly 20% of Mexicans moved to the US.

Or, as is the case with my family, the US moved to the Mexicans.

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

#168

Post by TheCoelacanth »

btilly wrote: post #145
nostrademons wrote: post #64

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 are a vanishingly small portion of immigrants in the US.

There are about 47 million immigrants living in the US[1] and about 267 thousand refugees[2]. There have been an average of more than a million people gaining permanent resident status each year for the past 20 years and less than 100 thousand refugees admitted each year for the same time period[3]. Even in the single highest year ever for refugee admittance, they were only about a quarter of immigrants.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_refugee_p...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat...

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

#169

Post by m0zg »

toasterlovin wrote: post #69
nostrademons wrote: post #64

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 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 he will always have upper middle class existence he's currently enjoying, no matter what, even though with his current grades there's no way he will get into a decent college.

I personally was under no such illusion ever in my life, so I worked super hard to get to where I am today.

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

#170

Post by pkaye »

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…

A lot of countries have that filter. Canada has an explicit point based ranking system based on age, level of education, language fluency and profession.
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