Asian Americans comprise 6.4% of the US population, but account for over 20% of the country’s elite Ivy League students. While researchers have studied mechanisms that promote an “Asian second-generation advantage” in education, including immigrant hyper-selectivity, few have examined whether this advantage extends into the labour market. Focusing on the five largest Asian groups–Chinese, Indians, Filipinos, Vietnamese, and Koreans–we revisit the thesis of Asian second-generation advantage. We argue that how we define advantage–as outcomes or mobility, in education or in occupations–matters. Our analyses reveal that all five second-generation Asian groups attain exceptional educational outcomes, but vary in intergenerational mobility. Second-generation Vietnamese exhibit the greatest intergenerational gains, followed by second-generation Chinese and Koreans; second-generation Indians and Filipinos experience none. Moreover, this advantage disappears in the labour market for all groups, except for Chinese, revealing the domain-specific nature of the Asian second-generation advantage.
CITATION STYLE
Tran, V. C., Lee, J., & Huang, T. J. (2019). Revisiting the Asian second-generation advantage. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 42(13), 2248–2269. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2019.1579920
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