Are Immigrants from Asia Healthier than Immigrants from Other Regions?: Self-reported Health Status and Functional Difficulties of Immigrants in the USA

This study examines how regions of origin are related to immigrant health status in the USA. This paper uses the National Health Interview Survey to examine health status differences between East and Southeast Asian immigrants and immigrants from other regions. The models control for duration, socioeconomic factors, and behavioral factors. Two health indicators are examined: self-reported health and functional difficulties. Results from ordered logit regression analyses demonstrate that some of the regions of birth do significantly predict differences in health for immigrants. Specifically, immigrants from Central America and the former Soviet Union do exhibit significant health disadvantages when compared with immigrants from East and Southeast Asia. The duration effect was positively related to functional difficulties but not to self-reported health status. Overall, economic resources and education typically have a strong relationship to the measures of immigrants’ physical health. It was also found that drinking is persistently associated with better measures of physical health while smoking appears to have the opposite effect.     

What is the Right to Exclude Immigrants?

It is normally taken for granted that states have a right to control immigration into their territory. When immigration is raised as a normative issue two questions become salient, one about what the right to exclude is, and one about whether and how it might be justified. This paper considers the first question. The paper starts by noting that standard debates about immigration have not addressed what the right to exclude is. Standard debates about immigration furthermore tend to result either in fairly strong cases for open borders or in denials that considerations of justice apply to immigration at all, which results in state discretion positions. This state of debate is both theoretically unsatisfactory and normatively implausible. The paper therefore explores an alternative approach to the right to exclude immigrants from the perspective of recent debates about the territorial rights of states. The right to exclude claimed by states is analysed and it is shown to differ both conceptually and normatively from rights to impose political authority within a territory. The paper finally indicates how this analysis might broaden the focus of debates about immigration and suggest alternative regimes of migration regulation the possibility of which is obscured by traditional justice approaches.     

How Do Organizations and Social Policies ‘Acculturate’ to Immigrants? Accommodating Skilled Immigrants in Canada

While the idea of acculturation (Berry 1997) was originally proposed as the mutual change of both parties (e.g., immigrants and the host society), the change processes of host societies are neglected in research. A grounded theory study explored the efforts of human service organizations to 'acculturate' to an increasingly diverse immigrant population, through interviews conducted with service providers serving Mainland Chinese immigrants. Acculturation efforts of human service organizations (mezzo-level acculturation) were often needs-driven and affected by the political will and resultant funding programs (macro-level forces). Even with limitations, human service organizations commonly focused on hiring Mainland Chinese immigrants to reflect the changing demographics of their clientele and creating new programs to meet the language and cultural backgrounds of the clients. To contextualize these organizational efforts, an analysis of how policy changes (macro-level acculturation) interact with organizational practice is presented. Finally, the meaning of acculturation for the host society is discussed.     

Do Attitudes Towards the Integration of Immigrants Change Over Time? A Comparative Study of Natives,Second-Generation Immigrants and Foreign-Born Residents in Luxembourg

The aim of this paper is to investigate attitudes toward the integration of immigrants in Luxembourg—the country with the highest proportion of immigrants in Europe. First, the paper examines how attitudes toward integration (consisting of two dimensions: attitudes toward assimilation and attitudes toward multiculturalism) vary among different groups of the country’s residents, i.e. natives and residents with a migratory background. Second, it examines how these attitudes have evolved over a period of nearly ten years. The Luxembourgish European Value Study data from 1999 and 2008 are used. The results of the analyses reveal that attitudes towards the integration of immigrants differ significantly among the resident groups analysed. Native residents are more supportive of the assimilation model compared to foreign-born residents and second-generation immigrants with two foreign-born parents, whereas the latter groups score higher on the multiculturalism scale than the other groups. With respect to trends in attitudes towards integration, the assimilation model gained popularity between 1999 and 2008 among all groups, whereas only a small decrease in popularity was found with respect to preferences for multicultural integration.     

Correlates of Career Satisfaction in Canada—the Immigrants’ Experience

This paper explores the correlates of career satisfaction among Canadian managers, professionals and executives, specifically the career satisfaction experience of both visible minority and non-visible minority immigrants. Survey data collected from over 13,000 managers, professionals and executives in 43 Canadian organizations were analysed using the ordinary least squares multiple regression technique. Results indicate that immigrants experience lower career satisfaction than native-borns and visible minority immigrants have lower career satisfaction than non-visible minority immigrants. Employee and employer characteristics, objective employment outcomes and subjective perceptual measures were found to be positively associated with career satisfaction for immigrant and native-born respondents.     

What's to Fear from Immigrants? Creating an Assimilationist Threat Scale

We argue that cultural threat, stressed in recent studies of anti-immigrant sentiment, is properly measured in the U.S. case as "assimilationist threat": a resentful perception that immigrants are failing to adopt the cultural norms and lifestyle of their new homeland. We explore the meaning and form of assimilationist threat in the minds of Americans through an analysis of four focus groups, two in Los Angeles, CA, and two in Columbus, OH. Using information from the focus groups, we develop and test a set of survey questions covering three dimensions of immigrants' commitment to their new country: language, productivity, and citizenship. We produce a summary scale of assimilationist threat that can be used by other researchers seeking to understand the causes and consequences of anti-immigrant sentiment.     

Canadian Immigrants’ Access to a First Job in Their Intended Occupation

Using detailed information on employment trajectory provided by the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada, this study examines the labor market outcomes of recent immigrants in terms of the duration until access to a first job in their intended occupation, as determined by a question in the first wave interview on labor market intentions. The matching between actual and intended occupations is obtained from the first two digits of the National Occupational Classification codes, which consider successively occupation type and skill level. Using a Cox proportional hazards model, the study investigates the roles of factors related to human and social capital in speeding up the matching process between actual and intended occupations. It is found that the initial year in Canada is critical for an immigrant to land a job in the intended field; after that period, the hazards of finding employment in the intended occupation flatten down. In general, those with intention to work in nonprofessional jobs, such as sales and services, trades, transport and equipment operators, primary industry, and processing and manufacturing occupations, enter the first job in the intended occupation more quickly. The results also show that education, English language ability, Canadian work experience, and friend networks facilitate access to the intended occupation.     

The Impact of Acculturation and Cultural Values on Hispanic Immigrants’ Parenting

This study explored the process Hispanic immigrant families undergo when immigrating to the United States through the implementation of a constructivist grounded theory methodology. The theory illustrates the process in three phases: Arriving to a new country, Integrating new values, and Maintaining values. Through these phases the constant interaction between cultures and its influence in family dynamics is illustrated. More specifically, this theory suggests immigrant families are open to include elements of the new culture encountered while keeping elements of their native culture present once their basic necessities are met. The sample of the study consisted of 16 parents. These parents incorporated the English language, granted greater freedom to their children, became more involved with the school system, included American traditions in their celebrations, and altered their discipline methods based on their interaction with the new culture. Additionally, parents maintained the value of respect, the Spanish language, fostered family cohesion, and instilled their spiritual beliefs to their children.     

How Important Is Vocational Success to the Overall Satisfaction of Immigrants?

An ex post facto experiment considered the influence of two main stages of the immigrant's career reconstruction (the preparatory career stage and the establishment stage) on the relationship between vocational achievement and overall satisfaction. The research used a sample of 83 immigrants, mostly of Eastern European origin. Satisfaction scores were correlated with objective measures of adjustment (governmental examination at retraining courses, promotion, and earnings at the job) and with tests measuring personality traits and values as the presumed moderators of the relationship. The results revealed two models of link between vocational achievement and satisfaction: Korman's consistency model and a dissonance model, each of them appearing in a different circumstantial setting. Spiritual need gratification was found to have a great influence on immigrant satisfaction, especially before establishment in a job was achieved. It allows then for satisfaction to appear also at objective vocational failure.     

Are Residential and Workplace Concentration Correlated for Immigrants? Evidence for Sweden

In immigrant-receiving countries, immigrants are often concentrated in residential neighbourhoods with high concentrations of immigrants. In addition, they are concentrated in workplaces with high concentrations of immigrants. Many researchers have assumed that these are two sides of the same coin, so that policy affecting residential segregation could be expected to influence workplace segregation. Using Swedish register data for 2007, we directly assess whether immigrants who live in residential neighbourhoods concentrated with immigrants also work in firms concentrated with immigrants. We find that there is very little correlation between residential and workplace segregation, suggesting that policy could profitably target both types of segregation separately.     

Immigrants and Precarious Work in Canada: Trends, 2006–2012

Using the Canadian Labour Force Survey for March of 2006 through 2012, the present study examines precarious employment and trends over time between immigrants (recent and established) and their Canadian-born counterparts. The regression models are run separately for males and females as existing research shows that many precarious jobs are occupied predominantly by women. The findings of the present study show recent immigrant males and females (respondents in the sample who have lived in Canada for five years or less) are over-represented in involuntary part-time work and this trend is increasing over time. The pattern is not as pronounced for multiple-job holders nor for temporary-job holders.     

Why Do So Many Children of Immigrants Attend University? Evidence for Canada

The children of Canadian immigrants from some source regions, Asia, Africa and China in particular, attend university at extraordinarily high rates. Most others participate at lower rates, but still compare favourably with non-immigrant Canadians. In this paper, the Youth in Transition Survey is used to analyse the role of various background factors on these outcomes, including parental education, family income, parental expectations, high school grades and PISA test scores. To some degree, the children of immigrants go to a university because they have higher levels of the background attributes associated with university attendance, parental education in particular. But by allowing these effects to vary by immigrant group, this research finds that the high immigrant university participation rates are largely driven by those possessing “unfavourable” characteristics (low levels of parental education in particular) attending university in spite of these apparent disadvantages.     

Location, Location, Location: Where Do Immigrants Reside in Australia?

Concentration of immigrants in a particular area has important implications for the provision of social services and the local labor market. This paper examines the location choice of immigrants in five major statistical regions in Australia using the 2001 Census of Population and Housing. The paper focuses on differences in location choice across birthplace groups and cohort arrivals. The results show that immigrants from the UK are less likely to reside in larger cities (e.g., Sydney, Melbourne) compared to immigrants from other birthplace groups, particularly those from non-English-speaking countries. Ethnic concentration has a positive effect on immigrants’ location choice, and this is consistent across arrival cohorts. Furthermore, all immigrants are attracted to a particular location with high concentration of poor English-speaking immigrants or concentration of young individuals. However, immigrants are not attracted to a particular location with concentration of individuals who have not completed high school.     

Mental Health Professionals’ Attitudes,Perceptions, and Stereotypes Toward Latino Undocumented Immigrants

We assessed the attitudes, perceptions, and stereotypes toward Latino immigrants among 247 mental health professionals across 32 U.S. states. We also randomly presented two versions of an attitude measure that varied in their references to immigrants (“illegal aliens” or “undocumented immigrants”). Participants reported that they did not agree with the anti-immigration law Arizona SB 1070 and other similar bills. Also, greater multicultural awareness was related to positive attitudes and fewer stereotypes toward immigrants. Furthermore, participants who were asked to think about “undocumented immigrants” viewed Latino immigrants more positively than those who were asked think about “illegal aliens.” Findings show the continued need for multicultural awareness and competence training for mental health professionals, which align with the American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (i.e., Principle E: Respect for People’s Rights and Dignity and Standard 3.01: Unfair Discrimination). Limitations and future directions for research are discussed.     

First 4 Years in Canada: Post-secondary Education Pathways of Highly Educated Immigrants

This paper addresses issues relevant to the socioeconomic integration of highly educated immigrants in Canada by undertaking a secondary analysis of the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada. It illustrates the promptness of immigrants’ participation in further post-secondary education (PSE) in Canada within the first 4 years of arrival and proposes a typology of PSE pathways to examine individual, situational, dispositional and immigrant-specific factors that determine adult immigrants’ choices. The Canadian immigrant experience involves the interplay between structural constraints and agency to shape individualized pathways along which newcomers use existing human capital to create new forms of human capital (Canadian credentials) as a strategy to improve their employment opportunities.     

Are Immigrants Socially Isolated? An Assessment of Neighbors and Neighboring in Canadian Cities

Recently, the media have expressed concern about the apparent concentration and social isolation of immigrants in central and inner suburban neighborhoods in large Canadian cities. This paper compares and contrasts the frequency and nature of neighborhood-based social contacts among three cohorts of immigrants distinguished by their period of arrival in Canada and Canadian-born individuals. We begin by outlining the family, friend, and acquaintance relationships that immigrants build and argue that their networks are culturally diverse and dominated by acquaintances. In this context, intense friendships rarely develop between neighbors, even for recent newcomers. Rather, neighboring consists mainly of casual interactions between individuals that often involve the provision of mundane forms of assistance. Despite their fleeting and routine qualities, social relations with neighbors lead the vast majority of people to express strong levels of belonging to their neighborhoods. As a consequence, we argue that the neighborhood is an underestimated locale for understanding social inclusion.     

Decomposing Immigrants’ Religious Mobility: Structural Shifts and Inter-religion Exchanges Among Chinese Overseas Students

The religious mobility of immigrants has rarely received a systematic investigation that separates the two mutually exclusive mechanisms: the structural shift that occurs due to an overall environment favorable to certain religions, and the exchange effect that occurs when people voluntarily flow between any pair of two religions. Chinese overseas students constitute the largest foreign student body in the US whose religious mobility pattern remains unexplored and may differ significantly from other types of immigrants in earlier generations, especially regarding the assumed growth of Christianity and changes within other religions and non-religions. Applying quasi-symmetry log-linear model to the pre- and post-immigration religious identifications in a new sample of Chinese oversea students collected from the Midwest in 2016 (n = 916), this study shows that (1) Abrahamic religions including Christianity and Islam have the biggest structural advantage; (2) Eastern religions including Buddhism, Chinese folk religions, and generic polytheism have suffered from structural disadvantages; (3) religious nones (i.e. atheists and agnostics) have remained relatively stable with little structural variation; (4) net of the structural effects, there is a higher level of mutual exchange of members between Buddhism and polytheism, between atheism and agnostic, and between Christianity and atheism.     

Is STEM Education Portable? Country of Education and the Economic Integration of STEM Immigrants

The core question in this research asks what are the occupational and earnings consequences of place of education for immigrants with bachelor’s degrees or higher and whose highest degrees are in STEM fields compared to the native born. The focus is on immigrants with degrees in 15 countries which represent 88% of the immigration population of interest. In the analysis of the Canadian 2011 National Household Survey, STEM education is matched to three occupational outcomes: employment in STEM occupations, employment in other occupations usually requiring university bachelors’ degrees or higher, and employment in all other occupations which usually require less than university education. The Canadian-born and permanent legal residents whose highest degrees in STEM fields are from institutions in Canada, the USA, the UK, and in the case of the foreign born, France, are more likely to be employed in either STEM occupations or high-skilled occupations requiring bachelors’ degrees than are immigrants educated elsewhere; the latter are more likely to be employed in occupations that are not STEM related and usually do not require bachelor’s degrees. Immigrant disadvantages are stronger for earnings; regardless of the location of their STEM education, immigrants earn less than the Canadian born who received university degrees in Canada. However, the size of the gap varies by the country of the highest degree with the largest gaps, relative to the Canadian born and Canadian educated, observed for immigrants who are educated in countries other than Canada, the USA, the UK, and France.