Nursing as ethnic capital: perceptions of intergenerational niching among Filipino Americans

• In Event: Asia and Asian American Section Roundtables Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 7: Asia and Asian America Section Roundtable - Health and Medicine

Abstract

Ethnic niches (jobs or sectors where an ethnic group is overrepresented) help sociologists understand immigrant mobility across generations. While ‘niche’ can describe many industries, U.S. immigration scholars have largely focused on small business ownership. As a result, studies often conclude that the second generation avoids niche work in pursuit of educational credentials, professional employment, and thus intergenerational upward mobility. We argue this conclusion stems from conflating niche work with immigrant entrepreneurship, overlooking professional niches that offer socioeconomic stability and access to the middle class. Filipino Americans, long concentrated in nursing, provide a compelling case. This study asks two questions: Are Filipinos statistically overrepresented in nursing across generations? And how do first- and second-generation Filipinos perceive the nursing niche? Drawing on American Community Survey data (2010–2019) and 54 in-depth interviews with Filipino parents and their teenage children, we find strong evidence of intergenerational niching or the maintenance of a professional ethnic niche across generations. Furthermore, contrary to prior scholarship, we find that members of this community view the persistence of the niche among the second generation positively. We demonstrate that the perception of nursing as desirable work functions as a form of ethnic capital that shapes Filipinos’ distinct mobility patterns.

Authors

• Brenda Gambol, University of Texas at Dallas

• Rebecca Journey, University of Chicago

• Andrew Taeho Kim, University of Tennessee-Knoxville