Ethnic Labor Market Contexts and the Earnings of Asian Immigrants
| Author | Zai Liang,Hyoung‐jin Shin |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12015 |
| Published date | 01 April 2014 |
| Date | 01 April 2014 |
Ethnic Labor Market Contexts and the
Earnings of Asian Immigrants
Hyoung-jin Shin* and Zai Liang**
ABSTRACT
Our paper examines how group specific metropolitan level factors affect the earnings of six
major Asian immigrant groups in the United States: Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Japanese,
Korean, and Vietnamese. Drawing upon the theoretical perspectives of structural assimilation
and ethnic economies, we develop several testable research hypotheses which are examined
for the six Asian groups utilizing group specific multilevel regressions models. What is novel
in this analysis is the comparison of the six Asian groups in different metropolitan areas in
order to examine how variation in metropolitan context interacts with individual characteristics
to influence individual earnings in wage or salaried occupations. The results show that the
impact of metropolitan context is not uniform, but varied across and within the groups accord-
ing to their different group and individual characteristics. We argue that future research
strategy to establish the relationship between assimilation factors and immigrant earnings
should put high priority on considering the distinctiveness of each immigrant group and the
recent geographic diversification of immigrant destinations.
INTRODUCTION
Recent decades have witnessed a significant increase in immigration from Asian countries to the
United States. According to the United States Census, Asian populations in the country increased
by nearly 70 per cent between 1990 and 2000 (from 7.2 million to12.3 million) mainly as a result
of immigration. This increase has stimulated a growing number of studies that examine the experi-
ence of Asian immigrants. As a main indicator of socioeconomic attainment and assimilation, a
large body of literature focuses on the earnings of Asian immigrants (Hirschman and Wong, 1984;
Sanders and Nee, 1987; Zeng and Xie, 2004).
In this paper, we examine the earnings of six Asian immigrant groups in the United States –Chi-
nese, Filipino, Indian, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese –using the micro level data from the 2000
US Census. We are particularly interested in the earnings of Asian immigrant workers who are not
self-employed. The earnings of the self-employed among Chinese and Korean immigrants have been
often studied because of the greater propensity for self-employment among these groups (Logan et al,
2003; Portes and Zhou, 1996; Sander and Nee, 1987). However, many new immigrant groups (for
example, Filipinos who are currently the second largest Asian immigrant groups in the US) show a
lower self-employment rate than the US average. Even among the most entrepreneurial group such as
* Kyungpook National University.
** University at Albany.
doi: 10.1111/imig.12015
©2012 The Authors
International Migration ©2012 IOM
International Migration Vol. 52 (2) 2014
ISS N 00 20- 7985 Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Koreans, almost 80 per cent of the immigrant workers are not self-employed (Min, 2006). Therefore, it
is important to examine the earning mechanisms of non self-employed immigrant workers through
their ethnic milieus separately.
Like previous studies on the earnings of Asian immigrants, this paper will consider individual
level variables such as human capital and assimilation factors. We will examine multiple Asian
groups side by side to capture the diversity among today’s Asian immigrant population. We move
beyond the individual level model to consider characteristics of metropolitan areas in which immi-
grants reside. In addition to metropolitan level control variables, which reflect differences in the
local labour market conditions of the mainstream economy, we include group-specific metropolitan
level factors such as group size, self-employment rate, and the ethnic concentration in a particular
industrial sector.
We argue that our attempt to place metropolitan contexts in the discussion of immigrant earnings is
timely because more and more immigrants are choosing non-gateway destinations in recent years
(Massey, 2008; Singer et al, 2008). Asian immigrants tend to settle in ethnic enclaves such as China-
town, Little Tokyo, and Koreatown that were established in gateway cities such as New York and Los
Angeles in the past. But more recently, metropolitan areas that historically received few Asian immi-
grants, such as Atlanta and Houston, have been new destinations for middle-class Asian immigrants.
In addition, highly skilled middle-class immigrants avoid inner-city ethnic enclaves and reside in more
affluent suburban areas near traditional gateway cities upon their arrival. These non-gateway destina-
tions usually have different characteristics from traditional immigrant communities.
We select 25 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) by the order of the total Asian population.
Although it is apparently a metropolitan area with large Asian populations, Honolulu, Hawaii is not
included in our analysis due to its unique history, geography, and demographic profiles. The
composition of Asian populations in the selected 25 MSAs is presented in Table 1. As shown, each
of the 25 MSAs has more than 50,000 Asian populations, and covers majority of Chinese,
Filipinos, Indians, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese in the country.
The reason that we chose 25 MSAs rather than all metropolitan areas is that the sample size is
not sufficient for some MSAs to distinguish the variances attributable to individual and metropoli-
tan level variables from our multilevel analysis. Although these 25 metropolitan areas do not neces-
sarily include all emerging immigrant destinations for Asian groups, we argue that examining the
different types of urban settings for each group can demonstrate how variations in metropolitan
level factors (including proportion of co-ethnic workers) affect the earnings of Asian immigrant
workers differently.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Our paper is motivated by several theoretical perspectives that link characteristics of metropolitan
areas with individual earnings. These viewpoints provide us with a number of testable hypotheses.
Our hypotheses aim to test not only how metropolitan level factors affect the earnings of immigrant
groups but also how metropolitan level characteristics have different impacts for individuals with
different characteristics. The former involves modeling the impact of metropolitan level characteris-
tics using multilevel analysis techniques and the latter entails examining the cross level interaction
effects between individual level and metropolitan level variables.
Concentration of ethnic entrepreneurs
The extent to which ethnic entrepreneurship brings about socioeconomic advancement of immigrant
group members has been extensively examined in sociological literature (Bonacich, 1973; Light
Ethnic Labor Market Contexts and the Earnings of Asian Immigrants 141
©2012 The Authors. International Migration ©2012 IOM
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