Asian Americans as an Example of a Second-Generation Immigrant-Descent Minority
When evaluating the long-term integration of immigrants, it is therefore important to analyze differences not just between the foreign-born and U.S-born, but also across generations of the U.S.-born (Farley and Alba 2002; Card 2005; Smith 2006). The ideal data set for such an analysis would include information about the family tree of each individual, enabling us to identify which individuals have ancestors who immigrated to the United States from a particular country and how many generations have elapsed since that immigration took place. Information of this sort would also allow us to characterize the complexity of each individual’s immigrant roots in some detail, accounting for factors such as the specific national origins of an individual’s immigrant ancestors, whether the same national origins show up on both the paternal and maternal sides of the family tree, and how far removed from the current generation are the immigrant ancestors.
Asian population overall does well on measures of economic well-being compared with the U.S. population as a whole, but this varies widely among Asian subgroups. The median annual household income of households headed by Asian Americans is $73,060, compared with $53,600 among all U.S. households. But these overall figures hide differences among Asian origin groups. Four groups have household incomes well below the median household income for all Americans: Bangladeshi ($49,800), Hmong ($48,000), Nepalese ($43,500) and Burmese ($36,000). By contrast, Indian households have the highest median income ($100,000), followed by Filipinos ($80,000), Japanese and Sri Lankans (each $74,000). Asians overall were also less likely than the general U.S. population to live in poverty in 2015 (12.1% vs. 15.1%). But again, there are large differences between Asian subgroups. Eight of the 19 Asian groups analyzed had poverty rates higher than the U.S. average. Hmong (28.3%), Bhutanese (33.3%) and Burmese (35.0%) had the highest poverty rates among Asian groups, while the lowest rates were among Filipinos (7.5%), Indians (7.5%) and Japanese (8.4%).
Neidert Lisa J, Farley Reynolds. Assimilation in the United States: An Analysis of Ethnic and Generation Differences in Status and Achievement. American Sociological Review. 1985 Dec;50(6):840–50.
Borjas George J. Long-Run Convergence of Ethnic Skill Differentials: The Children and Grandchildren of the Great Migration. Industrial and Labor Relations Review. 1994 Jul;47(4):553–73.
Perlmann Joel. Italians Then, Mexicans Now: Immigrant Origins and Second-Generation Progress, 1890–2000. New York: Russell Sage Foundation; 2005.
Farley Reynolds, Alba Richard. The New Second Generation in the United States. International Migration Review. 2002 Fall;36(3):669–701.