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Introduction: Background and Overview

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Human Capital Investment

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Abstract

This book studies earnings trajectories and human capital investment of Asian immigrants compared with immigrants from Europe and Canada immigrants. Part I posits the Immigrant Human Capital Investment (IHCI) model that suggests the entire path of earnings is needed to value migrant economic assimilation and immigrant contributions to the U.S. economy. Part II tests this on Asian immigrant men arriving in the 1960s and 1970s. Part III considers how the family and extended family and community facilitate earnings growth. Parts IV and V establish earnings patterns for immigrants arriving near the turn of the twenty-first century and refugees. Part VI then returns to Asian immigrants who entered the United States before the Immigration Act of 1924 effectively barred their immigration. Throughout this study, we emphasize the need for a life cycle model to understand immigrant economic assimilation in the United States.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Several studies offer an historical perspective into the economic characteristics, including educational attainment, of Asian immigrants: Hirschman and Wong 1984, 1986; Model 1988; Barringer et al. 1990; Fernandez and Kim 1998; Nee and Sanders 2001; Sanders et al. 2002; Zhen and Yu 2004.

  2. 2.

    See, for instance, Lieberson (1980), Lieberson and Waters (1988), and Waters and Lieberson (1992).

  3. 3.

    This taxonomy is approximate and leaves out several categories. For a more comprehensive and detailed description of the various types of U.S. immigrants, refer to Immigration and Naturalization Service (1993). For a longer and broader view of the history of U.S. immigration policy, refer to Bernard (1980), Hutchinson (1981), and Reimers (2005).

  4. 4.

    Borjas (1990, p. 33) notes, “The fraction of total immigration attributable to refugee admissions increased from 6 to 19% between the 1960s and the 1980s and is rapidly approaching the level reached immediately after World War II (25%), when a large flow of displaced persons entered the United States.” The increase in refugee admissions affected the country-of-origin composition of immigrants as well (Reimers 1996). Unlike other legal immigrants, refugees do not need to have U.S. relatives or specific occupational skills to qualify for admission. Instead, their admission to the United States is based on the threat of persecution in their country of origin. For a discussion of U.S. refugee policy and a history of relevant legislation, see Bhagwati (1996) and D. Reimers (1996, 2005).

  5. 5.

    The alarm bells about the declining quality of U.S. immigrants sounded when the entry earnings of post-1965 immigrants were compared with the entry earnings of immigrants who entered in the years 1940–1965. Yet, this benchmark period is one in which immigration was severely restricted. When people think of the immigrants who “built America,” they are generally thinking of the immigrants who came in before immigration was restricted. Had recent immigrants been compared to those who entered in the previous great wave of immigration, the alarm bells about declining immigrant quality might not have been set off.

  6. 6.

    Refer to Model (1988) for a review of literature on the determinants of socioeconomic success among immigrants from Europe and Asia.

  7. 7.

    A considerable body of research has focused on the role that women play within the household re decisions about work and how working affects the relationship with their husbands e.g., Espiritu (1997), Gilbertson and Gurak (1993), Grasmuck and Pessar (1991), Hondagneu-Sotelo (1992, 1994), Kibria (1993), Landsdale and Ogena (1995), Lim (1997), Pessar (1987), and Pesquera (1993).

  8. 8.

    Also key to understanding the role of women in economic assimilation are studies of immigrant fertility, alone, and linked to women’s labor force participation (e.g., Bean et al. (2000), Blau (1992), Bloom and Killingsworth (1985), Duleep and Sanders (1994), Ford (1990), Kahn (1988, 1994), and Swicegood, Bean, Stephen and Opitz (1988)) as well as studies of immigrant family formation and dissolution ((e.g., Jasso, Massey, Rosenzweig, and Smith (2000), Landsdale and Ogena (1995), Liang and Ito (1999), and Ortiz (1996))

  9. 9.

    A gendered understanding of immigrant economic assimilation, as opposed to treating gender as a variable arose in the works of Chiswick (1980), Pedraza (1991), Pessar (1999), Powers and Seltzer (1998), and Weinberg (1992). Bean and Tienda (1987) showed that among Hispanics, labor force participation effects of education and English proficiency were stronger for women than men.

  10. 10.

    Please refer to Hein (1995).

  11. 11.

    For instance, Barringer et al. (1985) analyze specific Asian groups using the 1980 census but do not separately analyze the foreign born within these groups. Exceptions include the studies of Schoeni (1997, 1998) and Cortes (2004). Further, note that there are important divisions ignored in this book that future researchers will want to investigate. For instance, in our analyses of the 1965–79 and 1975–80 cohorts we combine entrants from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. A more disaggregated glimpse of “Chinese immigrants” is given in Chap. 17.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Public Policy, William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA

    Harriet Duleep

  2. National Foundation for American Policy, Arlington, VA, USA

    Mark C. Regets

  3. Department of Economics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Seth Sanders

  4. Department of Economics, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT, USA

    Phanindra V. Wunnava

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  1. Harriet Duleep
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Duleep, H., Regets, M.C., Sanders, S., Wunnava, P.V. (2020). Introduction: Background and Overview. In: Human Capital Investment. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47083-8_1

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