The Second Generation’s Occupational Prestige and Income Trajectories in the 21st Century

• In Event: 20862 - Section on International Migration Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 16: Immigration Integration (1)

Abstract

While prior work has demonstrated how the second generation experiences upward socioeconomic mobility compared to their migrant parents through different modes of incorporation based on parental human capital and social network resources, less attention has been paid to how these modes of incorporation produce different returns based on the contexts where they are employed. By using twenty-five years of CPS data from 2000 to 2024, I analyze how different cohorts of second generation individuals differ on their occupational prestige and income based on the different contexts experienced, using multilevel regressions.
Contextual factors are categorized based on the three components of the Context of Reception experienced by the first generation. Labor Market conditions are measured by the state-level minimum wage and county-level unemployment rate. The Coethnic Community is measured by the MSA-level residential Isolation Index. Finally, Government Policies will be based off the Urban Institute’s State Immigration Policy database, providing state-level integration, enforcement, and public benefits policies.
Additionally, I argue for two more components to be added to the salient contextual influences experienced by the second generation. First, I argue that a measure of crime and criminalization in an area be measured to represent the potential for a different pathway from cross-generational upward mobility – either by increased criminal activity or increased racialization and criminalization of the second generation. This will be accomplished by MSA-level violent and property crime levels reported by the FBI Uniform Crime Report, as well as county-level prison admission rates. Second, I argue that a measure of public perception towards migrants be included to encapsulate the impact of a social construction of “illegality” among racialized citizens. This measure will be accomplished by a state-level thermometer and state-level hate crime occurrences.

Author

• Matthew Tarizzo, Vanderbilt University