Making it in America: Social mobility in the immigrant population
Making it in America: Social mobility in the immigrant population
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DOI：
10.1353/foc.2006.0013
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发表时间：
2006-09-01
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Borjas, George J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Borjas, George J.
在他对社会流动和美国移民的调查研究中，乔治·博尔哈斯强调了两点见解。首先，与本土出生的工人相比，大多数移民在收入上处于相当不利的地位。其次，不同移民群体的收入差异很大。移民的孩子慢慢地“赶上”了本土出生的工人。第一代和第二代之间的相对工资涨幅在5%到10%之间。特别值得关注的是，移民和第二代工人的年龄调整后的相对工资一直在下降——这一趋势对移民子女的影响不容乐观。移民收入的巨大种族差异也有同样重要的影响。来自加拿大等发达经济体的移民在美国劳动力市场上的表现要比来自墨西哥等较贫穷国家的移民好得多。最初的种族差异倾向于持续存在。粗略地说，大约有一半的相对经济地位差异会代代相传。因此，在移民一代中，不同种族之间的工资差距为20个百分点，这意味着第二代移民之间的工资差距为10个百分点，第三代移民之间的工资差距为5个百分点。同样，粗略地说，博尔哈斯将这种持久性的一半归因于孩子们成长的民族环境。博尔哈斯警告说，移民在20世纪的大部分时间里享有的社会流动性在未来可能不会持续下去。如今寻求移民的就业部门不太可能像一个世纪前迅速扩张的制造业那样提供同样的增长机会。与构成20世纪早期移民的众多且多样化的种族群体相比，今天庞大的移民群体可能会发展出不同的经济和社会结构，这实际上阻碍了他们的社会流动性。
In his survey of research on social mobility and U.S. immigration, George Borjas underscores two insights. First, most immigrants are at a sizable earnings disadvantage, relative to native-born workers. Second, the earnings of different groups of immigrants vary widely.The children of immigrants "catch up" to native-born workers slowly. The jump in relative wages between the first and second generations is somewhere between 5 and 10 percentage points. Of particular concern is that the age-adjusted relative wage of both immigrants and second-generation workers has been falling-a trend with bleak implications for the children of immigrants.The wide ethnic variation in the earnings of immigrants has equally important implications. National origin groups from advanced economies, such as Canada, do much better in the U. S. labor market than those from poorer countries, such as Mexico. And the initial ethnic differences tend to persist. In rough terms, about half of the difference in relative economic status persists from one generation to the next. Thus a 20 percentage point wage gap among ethnic groups in the immigrant generation implies a 10 point gap among second-generation groups and a 5 point gap among third-generation groups. Again in rough terms, Borjas attributes about half of that persistence to the ethnic environment in which children are raised.Borjas cautions that the rate of social mobility that immigrants enjoyed over much of the twentieth century may not continue in the future. The employment sectors seeking immigrants today are unlikely to provide the same growth opportunities as did the rapidly expanding manufacturing sector a century ago. And in contrast to the many and diverse ethnic groups that made up early twentieth-century immigrants, the large ethnic groups of immigrants today may develop separate economies and social structures, in effect hindering their social mobility.