From Parent to Child? Transmission of Educational Attainment Within Immigrant Families: Methodological Considerations

Abstract

One in five U.S. residents under the age of 18 has at least one foreign-born parent. Given the large proportion of immigrants with very low levels of schooling, the strength of the intergenerational transmission of education between immigrant parent and child has important repercussions for the future of social stratification in the United States. We find that the educational transmission process between parent and child is much weaker in immigrant families than in native families and, among immigrants, differs significantly across national origins. We demonstrate how this variation causes a substantial overestimation of the importance of parental education in immigrant families in studies that use aggregate data. We also show that the common practice of "controlling" for family human capital using parental years of schooling is problematic when comparing families from different origin countries and especially when comparing native and immigrant families. We link these findings to analytical and empirical distinctions between group-and individual-level processes in intergenerational transmission.

What Works? Family Influences on Occupational Aspirations among Descendants of Middle Eastern Immigrants on the Swedish Labour Market

“…Our results concur with those of other studies that demonstrate that many descendants of immigrants exceed the socioeconomic status of their Vol. 9, 2018 parents (Crul et al, 2017;Konyali, 2017;Luthra & Soehl, 2015;Luthra & Waldinger, 2013;OECD, 2016;Rezai, 2017). We suggest that the breaking of the 'reproduction cycle', i.e.…”

Social Mobility and Perceived Discrimination: Adding an Intergenerational Perspective

“…This wider version might particularly apply to persons of immigrant origin. According to so-called 'immigrant optimism' or 'immigrant paradox' research, the children of immigrants over-frequently aspire to surpass their parents' level of education (Ichou 2014;Luthra and Soehl 2015;Salikutluk 2016). It might be in this aspiration to surpass their parents that they fail and which then turns into perceived discrimination--an unanticipated downside of immigrant optimism.…”

Social Reproduction of Religiosity in the Immigrant Context: The Role of Family Transmission and Family Formation — Evidence from France

“… As shown in Luthra and Soehl (), controlling for educational attainment can be problematic when comparing migrant and non‐migrant families. In this case, the results are unaffected whether this control is included or not. …”