Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

According to the report from Migration Policy Institute, Chinese immigrants in 2018 are the third-largest foreign-born group in the United States. The number of Chinese immigrants has reached 2.3 million in 2016 which accounts for 5 percent of the total immigrant population in the United States. China also has already become a leading country of sending students to the U.S and has accounted for around one-third of the total foreign students in the U.S. Nearly half of these Chinese students were pursuing degrees in STEM related fields, and many Chinese students chose to stay and work in the U.S after graduation. According to the report from The Institute of International Education, Chinese citizens are the second-largest group who receive employer-sponsored H1B temporary working visas. However, the number of Chinese in Executives or managerial positions does not seem to go up with the growing number of Chinese employees, even the statistic shows that more and more Chinese are working in computer science and high-tech related companies. Due to a large number of highly-skilled Chinese immigrants who are working in the U.S. and a small number of native Chinese on managerial positions, there is a growing interest and need in understanding employment experience and outcomes among native Chinese. Among the many urgent questions about Chinese employment in the US are those seeking to find the level at which many native Chinese employees are experiencing the bamboo ceiling and the differences between managerial positions held by Whites as compared to Chinese as well as other Asians. These experiences may not be simple symptoms of failing processes in individual companies but may instead be evidence of an expansive racial disparity in U.S. high-tech companies. In this study, researcher utilizes both quantitative and qualitative methods which includes resume analyses and semi-structured interviews, aiming to explore whether position has relationship with racial factor statistically and at the same time, to get a deeper understanding of how native Chinese feel about their experiences in the U.S. high-tech companies.