scholarly journals Perceptions of success among working-class children of immigrants in three cities

Ethnicities ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 146879682110221
Author(s):  
Dalia Abdelhady ◽  
Amy Lutz
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Mexican Americans ◽  
Children Of Immigrants ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
Segmented Assimilation ◽  
Subjective Experiences ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
French Society ◽  
Immigrant Background

This article examines the subjective understanding of success among members of three groups of children of immigrants from Mexico, North Africa and Turkey, in Dallas, Paris and Berlin respectively, by accounting for their educational and early labor market experiences. We utilize neo-assimilation and segmented assimilation theories and highlight their divergence with regards to downward assimilation and frames of reference. We focus on the working-class children of immigrants in the three settings, as they are at the highest risk of downward mobility. We find that frames of reference play a significant role in shaping the subjective understandings of success among the three groups. Despite their disadvantaged position, Mexican Americans in Dallas regard their experiences as successful given their significant departure from their parents’ low status. French North Africans in Paris, on the other hand, emphasize their limited ability to overcome the restrictions imposed on them by French society and especially schools. Doing so, they compare themselves to their French peers who do not have an immigrant background. Children of immigrants from Turkey in Berlin, by comparison, encounter labor market discrimination but feel successful relative to their parents’ generation. We find that the children of immigrants in our study rely on members of their social networks who impact their labor market experiences as their frame of reference. When they compare themselves to their parents or earlier waves of immigrants, the children of immigrants perceive their accomplishments in a positive light. When they compare themselves to mainstream society, however, they emphasize persisting inequalities. Our conclusions emphasize the importance of understanding subjective experiences of success and mobility that have been largely ignored in the migration literature.

Masters of Craft

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard E. Ocejo
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Young Men ◽  
New Economy ◽  
Technical Skills ◽  
Manual Labor ◽  
Work Practices ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Postindustrial City ◽  
New Form ◽  
Cultural Repertoires

In today's new economy—in which “good” jobs are typically knowledge or technology based—many well-educated and culturally savvy young men are instead choosing to pursue traditionally low-status manual-labor occupations as careers. This book looks at the renaissance of four such trades: bartending, distilling, barbering, and butchering. The book takes readers into the lives and workplaces of these people to examine how they are transforming these once-undesirable jobs into “cool” and highly specialized upscale occupational niches—and in the process complicating our notions about upward and downward mobility through work. It shows how they find meaning in these jobs by enacting a set of “cultural repertoires,” which include technical skills based on a renewed sense of craft and craftsmanship and an ability to understand and communicate that knowledge to others, resulting in a new form of elite taste-making. The book describes the paths people take to these jobs, how they learn their chosen trades, how they imbue their work practices with craftsmanship, and how they teach a sense of taste to their consumers. The book provides new insights into the stratification of taste, gentrification, and the evolving labor market in today's postindustrial city.

Educational Downgrading: Adult Education and Downward Mobility

2021 ◽  
pp. 003804072098289
Author(s):  
Corey Moss-Pech ◽  
Steven H. Lopez ◽  
Laurie Michaels
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Adult Education ◽  
Educational Aspirations ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
The United States ◽  
Job Seekers ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Precarious Labor ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Returning To School

Scholarship on adult education throughout the life course focuses on the relationship between education and upward mobility. Scholars rarely examine how adults’ educational aspirations or trajectories are affected by downward mobility or an increasingly precarious labor market. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with 21 job seekers in the post–Great Recession labor market in the United States, this article advances the concept of educational downgrading: returning to school in pursuit of a credential lower than the highest level of education one previously sought or attained. We explore three pathways to downgrading connected to downward mobility: occupational dead ends, career reversals, and educational inflation. In the process, we highlight how individuals adjust their practical educational aspirations as they navigate a contemporary economy in which careers are unstable and credentials are needed for many kinds of jobs across the occupational hierarchy.

scholarly journals Gendered Experiences of Appearance-related Perks and Penalties in Finnish Labor Markets

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iida Kukkonen ◽  
Outi Sarpila
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Service Sector ◽  
Multinomial Regression ◽  
Subjective Experiences ◽  
Daily Work ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Labor Market Success ◽  
Research Gap ◽  
Nationally Representative

Physical appearance is generally associated with considerable labor-market sanctions, and appearances are thought to be of particular importance in the feminine service sector. However, little is known about workers’ experiences of appearance-based perks and penalties in Nordic labor markets. Drawing on literature on aesthetic capital and labor, this study aims to fill this research gap. The study uses a nationally representative survey (N = 1600) fielded in Finland and multinomial regression to determine whether subjective experiences of appearance-related perks and penalties are gendered, dependent on the field of work or daily work on appearances. Our main finding is that while both men and women experience looks-based perks and penalties, men are more likely to have experienced appearance having a say in salary negotiations. Our results shed light on the gendered logics of aesthetic capital and labor, and question economic understandings of beauty work as a pathway to labor market success for women

scholarly journals Life Satisfaction Development in the Transition to Adulthood: Differences by Gender and Immigrant Background

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juul H. D. Henkens ◽  
Matthijs Kalmijn ◽  
Helga A. G. de Valk
Keyword(s):  
Life Satisfaction ◽  
Transition To Adulthood ◽  
Random Effect ◽  
Children Of Immigrants ◽  
Longitudinal Survey ◽  
Healthy Development ◽  
Immigrant Background ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Random Effect Models ◽  
Lower Life Satisfaction

AbstractLife satisfaction is crucial for healthy development into adulthood. However, it is yet largely unknown how life satisfaction develops in the transition to adulthood. This study examined life satisfaction development in this transition and paid special attention to differences between boys, girls, children of immigrants, and nonimmigrants. Unique longitudinal data of seven waves (2010–2018) of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey Germany were used. Respondents (N = 3757, 54% girls, 78% nonimmigrants, Mage weighted = 14.6, SD = 0.6 at wave 1) were followed between ages 14 and 23 and multi-level random effect models were applied. Life satisfaction developed in a nonlinear way in the transition to adulthood (M-shape), with overall decreases between age 17 and 18 and between age 20 and 23. Girls reported lower life satisfaction levels in adolescence and more unstable trajectories than boys, where girls with immigrant backgrounds represented the least advantageous life satisfaction trajectory. Differences in life satisfaction between groups decreased from age 19 onwards.

Keeping Up with the Joneses, Müllers, De Jongs and Svenssons: The Economic Situation of Minority and Majority Youth

2018 ◽  
pp. 85-113
Author(s):  
Carina Mood
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Children Of Immigrants ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Immigrant Parents ◽  
Economic Disadvantage ◽  
Immigrant Background ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Carry Over ◽  
To Receive

This chapter studies how economic conditions differ between youth of immigrant background and majority youth in England, Germany, Netherlands and Sweden, with economic resources defined both in terms of family resources and the resources that children command themselves. We find that while immigrant parents tend to have lower incomes and more often suffer from non-employment and economic deprivation, their economic disadvantage does not carry over strongly to their children’s economic and material conditions: Children of immigrants have a similar situation to majority youth in terms of cash margin and material possessions, and they even tend to receive more money from their parents. Youth with immigrant background do however lack an own room more often and are less likely to earn own money from work, and those belonging to the first generation are somewhat more at risk of missing out on activities with friends, due to a lack of money. In general, poorer parents (immigrant as well as majority) tend to give equal amounts of money to their children as other parents, which suggests that they seek to shield their children from the consequences of a worse economy.

Durable Ethnicity

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Telles ◽  
Christina A. Sue
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Residential Segregation ◽  
Mexican Americans ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
The United States ◽  
Children Of Immigrants ◽  
The Third ◽  
European Immigrants ◽  
The Common

Despite the common perception that most persons of Mexican origin in the United States are undocumented immigrants or the young children of immigrants, the majority are citizens and have been living in the United States for three or more generations. On many dimensions of integration, this group initially makes strides on education, English language use, socioeconomic status, intermarriage, residential segregation, and political participation, but progress on some dimensions halts at the second generation as poverty rates remain high and educational attainment declines for the third and fourth generations, although ethnic identity remains generally strong. In these ways, the experience of Mexican Americans differs considerably from that of previous waves of European immigrants who were incorporated and assimilated fully into the mainstream within two or three generations. This book examines what ethnicity means and how it is negotiated in the lives of multiple generations of Mexican Americans.

scholarly journals Labor Market Vulnerability of Older Workers in the Netherlands and its Impact on Downward Mobility and Reduction of Working Hours

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Visser ◽  
Maurice Gesthuizen ◽  
Gerbert Kraaykamp ◽  
Maarten H J Wolbers
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Working Hours ◽  
Downward Mobility

Gender, Work, and Family in Cuba: The Challenges of the Special Period

2002 ◽  
Vol 18 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 32-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maura I. Toro-Morn ◽  
Anne R. Roschelle ◽  
Elisa Facio
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Women Workers ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Gender Equity ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Work And Family ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Special Period ◽  
Downward Mobility

It is within the context of the Special Period, the economic crisis that began in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the tightening of the economic blockade by the United States, that we analyze work and family relations in Cuba. Although women made significant gains in the labor market after the Revolution, the Special Period has eroded many of these gains. Using interviews collected in Cuba, we document the struggles that women workers encountered in order to continue to support their families and stay in the labor market. The growth of jobs in the tourist sector has led to worker redistribution and occupational downward mobility, as workers moved from professional to less skilled jobs in the tourism industry with little opportunities for mobility. We also capture how the Special Period has impacted Cuban families. Despite state attempts to legislate gender equity within the family, patriarchy was never fully eradicated in the home. This failure of the revolutionary project has been exacerbated by the country’s current economic crisis. The burden of this crisis has fallen more heavily on women who continue to shoulder the responsibility for household work and childcare.

Bosnian Refugee Women in (Re)settlement: Gender Relations and Social Mobility

2003 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Franz
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
York City ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Traditional Role ◽  
Refugee Women ◽  
Bosnian Women ◽  
Almost All

Bosnian refugee women adapted more quickly than their male partners to their host environments in Vienna and New York City because of their self-understanding and their traditional roles and social positions in the former Yugoslavia. Refugee women's integration into host societies has to be understood through their specific historical experiences. Bosnian women in exile today continue to be influenced by traditional role models that were prevalent in the former Yugoslavia's 20th-century patriarchal society. Family, rather than self-fulfillment through wage labor and emancipation, is the center of life for Bosnian women. In their new environment, Bosnian refugee women are pushed into the labor market and work in low-skill and low-paying jobs. Their participation in the labor market, however, is not increasing their emancipation in part because they maintain their traditional understanding of zena (women) in the patriarchal culture. While Bosnian women's participation in low-skill labor appeared to be individual families’ decisions more in New York City than in Vienna, in the latter almost all Bosnian refugee women in my sample began to work in the black labor market because of restrictive employment policies. In contrast to men, women were relatively nonselective and willing to take any available job. Men, it seems, did not adapt as quickly as women to restrictions in the labor market and their loss of social status in both host societies. Despite their efforts, middle-class families in New York City and Vienna experienced substantial downward mobility in their new settings. Women's economic and social downward mobility in (re)settlement, however, did not significantly change the self-understanding of Bosnian women. Their families’ future and advancements socially and economically, rather than the women's own independence and emancipation remained the most important aspect of their being.

The Children of Immigrants’ Academic Self-Efficacy: The Significance of Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Segmented Assimilation

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (5) ◽  
pp. 486-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Bondy ◽  
Anthony A. Peguero ◽  
Brent E. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Children Of Immigrants ◽  
Assimilation Theory ◽  
Segmented Assimilation ◽  
Fundamental Factor ◽  
Relevant Today ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Academic Self Efficacy

Academic self-efficacy reflects an adolescent’s level of confidence or belief that she or he can successfully accomplish educational assignments and tasks, which are also argued to be a fundamental factor in educational progress and success. Little is known, however, about the academic self-efficacy that the children of immigrants have, which is particularly relevant today in the midst of the current social, political, and economic debate over the influence of immigration in U.S. public schools. Segmented assimilation theory guides this study’s understanding of the children of immigrants’ academic self-efficacy. Analyses, which draw from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 and multilevel analyses, indeed reveal imperative findings. Most notably, the association between academic self-efficacy and assimilation is moderated by gender, race, and ethnicity. This article also discusses the importance of understanding the schooling of the children of immigrants in the educational system.

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