Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Longstanding debates have centered on how well immigrants and their descendants integrate into the U.S. labor force. Immigrants make up 13% of the U.S. population but 16% of the civilian workforce age population, and the children of these immigrants make-up almost a quarter of the U.S.’s potential future labor force. As a consequence, the U.S. workforce is reliant on immigrants and their children to staff current and future jobs at a time when U.S. job opportunities are more limited. Due to declines in manufacturing and rising inequality, today’s employment options are largely between low-skilled service/labor occupations and high-skilled professional/technical positions. The ability of children of immigrants to successfully integrate into this bifurcated employment system are critical for the nation’s economic, social, and political fortunes.

Existing studies on immigrant intergenerational mobility, however, are limited because they do not capture the ‘true’ occupational origins of the first generation. Instead, studies have largely focused on cross-cohort comparisons and/or trajectory gains made after immigrants’ arrive to the U.S. Though valuable, both of these approaches fail to capture gains/losses from the perspective of immigrants’ experiences in their home country. The same immigrant janitor in the U.S., for instance, could have been a physician in his/her home country but unable to practice in the U.S. due to licensing, language, and discrimination barriers. Or, this janitor could have been a coffee bean picker in his/her home country but once in the U.S. finally has the chance to move-up the economic ladder. Consequently, studies that examine intergenerational occupational mobility based on the occupation immigrants parents start out with in the U.S. miss the diverse origins of immigrant parents and fail to fully capture intergenerational occupational mobility.

Exploiting unique aspects of the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS: 2002), this study provides the first national-level assessment of the intergenerational occupational mobility of children of immigrants based on their parents’ home country occupation. ELS: 2002 is a rich national-level panel survey of U.S. 10^th graders through early adulthood (~age 26) that provides detailed information on parents’ last occupation in home country, current U.S. occupation, and child’s occupational attainment in early adulthood. Using this information, we examine intergenerational occupational mobility patterns between immigrant parents and children and whether these patterns differ based on which starting point of immigrant parents—occupation in home country vs. the U.S.—is considered. We compare these intergenerational mobility patterns to that of children of natives and examine variation by race/ethnicity and gender.

Preliminary results suggest different intergenerational occupational trajectories for children of immigrants than children of U.S.-born natives; children of immigrants often make greater gains. However, the trajectory for children of immigrants differs depending on if the focus is on their parents’ home country rather than U.S. occupation and these patterns differ by racial/ethnic groups. By focusing on parent’s home country occupation, we unmask important racial/ethnic variation in the intergenerational occupational mobility of children of immigrants.