Abstract
Researchers and policy makers alike wrestle with the pace and success with which immigrants from an ever-growing set of national origins and race and ethnic backgrounds adapt and assimilate to life in the United States. Michael White and Jennifer Glick have, in the past, collaborated with each other and with others, producing an extensive body of work in this area. In many ways, this book is a brief glimpse into their expansive earlier work on immigrant adaptation.
Using multiple data sources from the 2000 Census, Current Population Survey (CPS) from 1994 and 2004, High School and Beyond (HS&B, a longitudinal study of a nationally- representative sample of high school sophomores in 1982), National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS, a longitudinal study of a nationally-representative sample of eighth graders in 1988), the authors carefully document how successful immigrants are compared to their native-born counterparts in terms of educational outcomes, labor market experiences and neighborhood segregation levels. Ideally, researchers need data on the birthplace of respondents as well as their parents (and even their grandparents) to determine their generational status, but these data are often not available. Still, when possible, White and Glick differentiate between first generation (foreign-born), second generation (native-born with foreign-born parents) and the third generation and beyond (native-born with native-born parents).
In terms of education, they find modest effects of immigrant status on the educational achievement (high school math and reading test scores) and educational attainment (college completion) in the two cohorts from HS&B and NELS once the models account for differences in parental socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity. Some caveats apply. Results from HS&B suggest slightly lower test scores of immigrants compared to third generation youth. However, after controlling for parental socioeconomic status and test scores, these youth completed college at similar rates relative to third generation respondents. In the NELS cohort, where there were differences, it was often the first and 1.5 generation youth who not only earned higher math and reading test scores but also were more likely to complete college than their generation counterparts. This modest but important distinction suggests that immigrant outcomes in terms of education actually improved across these two cohorts.
With respect to labor market outcomes, White and Glick find that on average, the second generation has more favorable experiences than their first generation peers (especially recent arrivals). This finding also supports the narrative of straight-line assimilation. They also find no evidence of deterioration of immigrant quality (in terms of socieconomic status) between the two cohorts of arrivals in the 1970s (15–20 years in the United States as of the 1994 CPS) and the 1980s (15–20 years before the 2004 CPS). They rightly argue that recent arrivals of any historical period often have the highest poverty rates, but in general their standing improves with length of residence in the United States.
White and Glick also examine residential patterns and find that the segregation of foreign-born from native-born whites to be modest compared to black-white segregation levels. In fact, their results support the overwhelming effect of race on segregation rather than immigrant status. However, the pattern is one of convergence over time when comparing the first, second, and third generation. Not surprisingly, gateway cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago exhibit some of the highest segregation levels, but they argue that immigrants live away from native-born residents because of the high levels of racial segregation in these cities.
Overall, their results suggest that in general, immigrants and their offspring follow a straight line assimilation path that brings new arrivals, who on average come with lower levels of socioeconomic resources than their native-born counterparts, towards the outcomes of their native-born peers. However, national origin and race and ethnic differences determine the endpoint of their path to assimilation. They argue that these results do not support the notion of segmented assimilation, which suggests that some immigrants will actually experience downward mobility due to their minority status, context of reception, and their residential location. Although not always specified, this body of work suggest that some immigrants and their offspring (notably black and Hispanic) will experience downward assimilation towards the lower socioeconomic outcomes of their same-race counterparts while others (notably Asians and whites) will experience upward mobility towards presumably the higher socioeconomic outcomes of whites. Segmented assimilation has become a dominant theory in sociological studies of immigrants, so it is essential for White and Glick to confront this theoretical paradigm.
While they begin and end with the premise that their book is driven by policy debates, the book really delivers on providing empirical evidence of the outcomes of immigrants. The latter certainly illuminates some of the arguments regarding immigrant assimilation and whether the United States can afford or even benefit from immigrants, but they do not directly speak to what immigration policy or policies regarding immigrants (as the authors so eloquently differentiate between the two) ought to look like in the future. In fact, history suggests that U.S. policy on immigration has had substantial unintended consequences that sometimes outweigh its original intent. Their data sources also do not easily offer themselves to a thorough investigation of national origin versus race in affecting outcomes.
Their results clearly show that on average, immigrants thrive and on average, their socioeconomic well-being improves over time and generational status. Using a plethora of outcomes and complex data sources, this book offers a rich and statistically thorough treatment of the experiences of today’s immigrants. Their careful distinction between different cohorts of immigrant arrivals as well as different historical contexts of reception is a particular strength of their work—not only in this volume but in their larger body of work. Their attention to distinguishing between immigrant status and race is also crucial in informing studies of immigration in the United States. White and Glick offer a valuable and important contribution to the study of immigrants in the United States.