POPULATION RESEARCH AND POLICY REVIEW, 2001, Vol. 20, No. 1-2
Special Issue: High-skilled Migration
Migrant networks and the immigrant professional: An analysis of the role of weak ties.
Weak ties, particularly those to potential employers, play a more important role than strong ties in the immigration of professionals to the United States. I operationalize network strength through the class of admission variable in the Immigration and Naturalization Service's public use data files, Immigrants Admitted to the United States, 1972-1992. I also examine the differential impact of legislative measures on the availability of strong versus weak ties for four groups of professionals: physicians, nurses, engineers and scientists. Not only do weak ties figure heavily on the immigration experiences of professionals, but those impacts affect women differently than men. Professional women rely more heavily on strong ties than on weak ties when compared with males in their respective professions, with the exception of nursing. These findings suggests a need for further study into the migration experiences of professionals as well as more research into how gendered networks develop among immigrant professionals and how those networks influence (either positively or negatively) immigrant adaptation to United States' society.
(UNITED STATES, INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, IMMIGRANTS, MIGRANT WORKERS, SKILLED WORKERS, SEX ROLES, SEX DIFFERENTIALS, MIGRANT ASSIMILATION, MIGRANT STATUS, IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION).
English - pp. 9-31.
A. D. Bagchi, TIAA-CREF, 750 Third Avenue, 26th Floor, New York, NY 10017-3206, U.S.A.
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Skilled temporary and permanent immigrants in the United States.
The US temporary migration system is closely intertwined with the permanent system. First, this paper defines the various temporary and permanent admission categories. It presents available statistics on the occupations of temporary migrants upon admission and upon adjustment to permanent residency, especially since the Immigration Act of 1990 went into effect in 1992. There has been a sizable increase in the number of temporary workers over the past few years and those who adjust from specialty workers (H-1B) and intracompany transferee (L) have increased the overall skill composition of permanent immigrants. Secondly, the paper reviews the literature on the labor market impact of temporary migrants in academics and in the private sector. While there are marked concentrations of foreign-born workers among the college educated and especially Ph.D.s, the literature raises concerns but does not establish adverse effects (wage differentials, unemployment, etc.). There is, however, reason for some concern given trends in the postdoctoral labor market and for employers in `job shops' who undercut US workers with temporary workers.
(UNITED STATES, INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, TEMPORARY MIGRATION, IMMIGRANTS, MIGRANT WORKERS, SKILLED WORKERS, MIGRANT ASSIMILATION, INTELLECTUAL PROFESSIONS, LABOUR MARKET, MIGRANT STATUS, RESIDENCE PERMITS).
English - pp. 33-58.
B. L. Lowell, Georgetown University, Washington DC, U.S.A.
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Stephan, Paula E.; Levin., Sharon G.
Exceptional contributions to US science by the foreign-born and foreign-educated.
This paper contributes to the debate on high-skilled migration by examining whether the foreign-born and foreign-educated are disproportionately represented among individuals making exceptional contributions to science and engineering (S & E) in the U.S. Six indicators of scientific achievement are used: individuals elected to the National Academy of Sciences and/or National Academy of Engineering, authors of citation classics, authors of hot papers, the 250 most-cited authors, authors of highly cited patents, and scientists who have played a key role in launching biotechnology firms. We do not claim that this list is exhaustive, merely illustrative.
Using a variety of sources, we are able to determine the birth and educational origin of 89.3% of the study group of over 4,500 scientists and engineers. For each indicator of scientific achievement, we test to see if the observed frequency by birth (or educational) origin is significantly different from the frequency one would expect given the composition of the scientific labor force in the U.S. We find that although there is some variation by discipline, individuals making exceptional contributions to S & E in the U.S. are disproportionately drawn from the foreign born. Only in the instance of hot papers in the life sciences were we unable to reject the null hypothesis that the proportion is the same as that in the underlying population. The most frequent country of origin in the life sciences is Great Britain followed by Germany. In the physical sciences the reverse is true. We also find that individuals making exceptional contributions are, in many instances, disproportionately foreign educated, both at the undergraduate and at the graduate level.
We conclude that immigrants have been a source of strength and vitality for U.S. science and, on balance, the U.S. appears to have benefited from the educational investments made by other countries. We do not investigate, however, whether U.S. scientists and engineers have borne part of the cost of the inflow of foreign talent by being displaced from jobs and/or earning lower wages. Nor do we investigate the cost to the countries of origin.
(UNITED STATES, INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, IMMIGRANTS, TRAINING ABROAD, SKILLED WORKERS, INTELLECTUAL PROFESSIONS, LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION, SCIENCE).
English - pp. 59-79.
P. E. Stephan, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30303-3083, U.S.A.; S. G. Levin, Department of Economics, University of Missouri-St Louis, 8001 Natural Bridge Road, St. Louis, MO 63121-4499, U.S.A.
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Espenshade, Thomas J.; Usdansky, Margaret L.; Chung, Chang Y.
Employment and earnings of foreign-born scientists and engineers.
No summary.
(UNITED STATES, INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, IMMIGRANTS, SKILLED WORKERS, INTELLECTUAL PROFESSIONS, SCIENCE, EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES, WAGE LEVEL, LABOUR MARKET, LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION).
English - pp. 81-105.
T. J. Espenshade, M. L. Usdansky, Chang Y. Chung, Office of Population Research, Princeton University, 21 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, NJ 08544-2091, U.S.A.
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Boyd, Monica; Thomas, Derrick.
Match or mismatch? The employment of immigrant engineers in Canada's labor force.
Using major field of study and labor force data from the 1996 Canadian census, this paper assesses variations in the correspondence between training in engineering fields and employment patterns. Following a review of the issues associated with under-valuation of credentials, comparisons are made between Canadian born men age 30-54 and permanent residents who immigrated at children and those who immigrated at age 28 or later with respect to labor force participation, employment, and occupational location. Permanent residents who immigrated as adults are assumed to be foreign trained. Compared to the Canadian born and to those immigrating as children, this group is the least likely to be in the labor force or employed. When employed, they are less likely to have either manager, engineering or technical occupations, and most likely to be employed in other occupations. This slippage between training and occupational location is the greatest for those permanent residents with only Bachelors degrees. In part, these aggregate findings reflect recency of arrival of those immigrating as adults. For this group, mis-match is strongest within the first few years of arriving in Canada. Men with engineering training who have been in Canada 15 years or more and/or who have Masters and Ph.D. degrees have employment patterns and occupational profiles that more closely correspond to those of their Canadian-born counterparts or those arriving as children.
(CANADA, IMMIGRANTS, MIGRANT WORKERS, ENGINEERS, TRAINING, EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES, LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION, MIGRANT ASSIMILATION, MIGRANT STATUS).
English - pp. 107-133.
M. Boyd, Florida State University, 214D William Johnston Bldg Tallahassee, FL 32306-2270, U.S.A; D. Thomas, Statistics Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
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High-end immigrants and the shortage of skilled labor.
No summary.
(UNITED STATES, INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, IMMIGRANTS, SKILLED WORKERS, OCCUPATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS, LABOUR SHORTAGE).
English - pp. 135-141.
T. J. Espenshade, Office of Population Research, Princeton University, 21 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, NJ 08544-2091, U.S.A.
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The H-1B visa: Free market solutions for business and labor.
The H-1B visa program opened the US information technology labor market to temporary, skilled immigrant labor. But the immigrant worker was bound to a specific employer for the duration of the visa. The non-portability of the H-1B visa has benefitted the employer at the expense of immigrant and domestic workers. Much of the political debate surrounding the H-1B program has focused on raising the annual visa cap based on inconclusive evidence of a domestic IT labor shortage. The labor shortage question has obscured the more important issue of reforming the H-1B program to level the playing field between business and labor.
(UNITED STATES, INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, LABOUR MIGRATION, TEMPORARY MIGRATION, WORK PERMIT, IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION, IMMIGRANTS, MIGRANT WORKERS, SKILLED WORKERS, LABOUR MARKET).
English - pp. 143-156.
J. R. Watts, European Union Center of California, Scripps College, Claremont, California, U.S.A.
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POPULATION RESEARCH AND POLICY REVIEW, 2001, Vol. 20, No. 3
Household demographic factors as life cycle determinants of land use in the Amazon.
This paper seeks to broaden the application of demography to environmental studies by complementing existing macro-level approaches, which feature aggregate populations, with a micro-level approach that highlights household life cycles. I take up the case of small farm households in the Brazilian Amazon to present a theoretical framework that identifies demographic characteristics which dispose families to engage in different forms of land use as household age structures change. Empirical models show that net of the effects of farmer background, neighborhood context, institutional context, and off-farm incomes, demographic variables indicative of the household life cycle exert significant effects on the prominence of land uses with distinct environmental ramifications. The findings not only reveal micro-level demographic factors which affect Amazon land cover, they yield implications for future changes in rainforest landscapes in northern Brazil, and suggest household life cycle models as an avenue for further demographic research on environmental change in Latin America and other contexts.
(BRAZIL, REGIONS, FARMERS, LAND USE, FAMILY LIFE CYCLE, HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION, HOUSEHOLD INCOME, NEIGHBOURHOODS, SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT, ENVIRONMENT, ECOSYSTEMS, NATURE CONSERVATION, DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH).
English - pp. 159-186.
S. G. Perz, Department of Sociology and Center for Latin American Studies, University of Florida, 319 Grinter Hall, PO Box 115530, Gainesville, Florida 32611-5530, U.S.A.
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Boardman, Jason D.; Finch, Brian K.; Hummer, Robert A.
Race/ethnic differences in respiratory problems among a nationally-representative cohort of young children in the United States.
Using data from a nationally-representative cohort of young children in the United States, we ask the following: (1) Are there race/ethnic and birth weight differentials in the likelihood of developing respiratory problems by age three in a nationally representative birth cohort? (2) To what extent does birth weight, vis-à-vis other key sociodemographic risk factors, mediate race/ethnic differentials in reported respiratory problems? (3) Does the effect of birth weight on respiratory problems risk differ by race? We find that non-Hispanic black children are 1.7 times as likely as non-Hispanic white children to be reported to have respiratory problems by age three, while the risk for Hispanic children is similar to that of non-Hispanic white children. Birth weight is also very strongly related to respiratory problem risk. Specifically, children born at very low weights (500-1499 g) have four times the odds of having respiratory problems of heavier children. Statistical controls for birth weight decrease the black-white differential by about 20%, while additional controls for sociodemographic factors reduce the race differential by an additional 35%. Finally, the net effect of birth weight is different for black and white children: whereas birth weight affects the risk of respiratory problems for black children only at low weights (<1500 g), it remains an important predictor of excess risk for white children up to 3500 g.
(UNITED STATES, CHILDREN, RESPIRATORY DISEASES, BIRTH WEIGHT, ETHNIC GROUPS, BLACKS, WHITES, RISK, POPULATION AT RISK, COHORT ANALYSIS, COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS).
English - pp. 187-206.
J. D. Boardman, R. A. Hummer, Population Research Center and Department of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin, 336 Burdine, Austin, TX 78712, U.S.A.; B. K. Finch, Department of Sociology, Florida State University, 214D William Johnston Bldg Tallahassee, FL 32306-2270, U.S.A.
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White, Michael J.; Djamba, Yanyi K.; Dang, Nguyen Anh.
Implications of economic reform and spatial mobility for fertility in Vietnam.
Vietnam has registered a dramatic decline in fertility during the last decades. While the causes of such a sustained decline are still not well documented, many observers believe that government policies adopted in the 1980s have contributed to lower fertility. This article focuses on the implications of the Doi Moi program of market reforms on fertility, taking into account the influences of migration and population policy. The analysis is based on a sequential logit model of birth histories of ever married women interviewed in Vietnam in 1997. The results show a substantial decline in fertility since the Doi Moi program was introduced. The disruptive effects of migration are less pronounced, although migrants generally exhibit lower childbearing rates, and a somewhat different pattern of parity progression. We argue that the economic reforms of 1986, and the two-child policy initiated two years later, have reinforced Vietnamese women's desire for smaller families.
(VIET NAM, FERTILITY DECLINE, FERTILITY DETERMINANTS, ECONOMIC CONDITIONS, GEOGRAPHIC MOBILITY, ECONOMIC POLICY, MIGRATION POLICY, POPULATION POLICY, DESIRED FAMILY SIZE, PROPORTIONAL HAZARD MODELS).
English - pp. 207-228.
M. J. White, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, U.S.A.; Y. K. Djamba, Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond, Louisiana 70402, U.S.A.; Dang Nguyen Anh, Institute of Sociology, Vietnam.
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Rayer, Stefan; Brown, David L.
Geographic diversity of inter-county migration in the United States, 1980-1995.
This study focuses on the dynamics of internal migration since the 1970s nonmetropolitan turnaround period. In the first part of the study we analyze nationwide and regional net migration dynamics within an urban hierarchy framework for the three five-year periods 1980-85, 1985-90, and 1990-95. The analysis reveals the great diversity in spatial situations across the United States and provides a basis for evaluating alternative frameworks of population redistribution trends. We find that both the deconcentration and the restructuring perspective are helpful for understanding the situation in certain regions at particular points in time, but should not be applied to conceptualize metropolitan-nonmetropolitan population redistribution for the nation as a whole. The second part of the study identifies the factors associated with the dynamics of county level migration that are revealed in the descriptive analysis. Using both residual method and actual migration stream data in a multivariate regression framework, the study reveals that job-related and socioeconomic well being variables are the most important and most consistent determinants of inter-county migration differentials regardless of the direction of net migration exchanges among counties up and down the settlement structure. Finally, we find that factors associated with attracting migrants also frequently increase out-migration and thus the direction of net migration is typically a function of whether a particular variable is more strongly associated with in-or out-migration.
(UNITED STATES, ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICTS, INTERNAL MIGRATION, IN-MIGRATION, OUT-MIGRATION, MIGRATION DETERMINANTS, DIFFERENTIAL MIGRATION, MIGRATION BALANCE, URBAN HIERARCHY, EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES, SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONDITIONS).
English - pp. 229-252.
S. Rayer, D. L. Brown, Department of Rural Sociology, Cornell University, 221 Warren Hall, Itacha, NY 14853, U.S.A.
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Lalota, Marlene; Shultz, James M.; Garcia, Luis M.; Pitchenik, Arthur E.; Valverde, Eduardo; Becerra, Merardo A.; Waters, Melinda.
HIV seroprevalence and risk behaviors among clients attending tuberculosis clinics in Miami-Dade County, Florida, 1989-1996.
Miami-Dade County is a major HIV epicenter and a port of entry for immigrants from nations with high endemic rates of tuberculosis (TB). We analyzed data from an unlinked (blinded) serosurvey of clients attending four Miami TB clinics to elucidate the dynamic HIV seroprevalence patterns in relation to demographics and risk behaviors. Data were analyzed from 3,107 consecutive TB patients at four TB treatment clinics over eight years. Overall HIV seroprevalence was 23.6% with a significantly higher infection rate for men (26.6%) compared to women (17.3%) (p < 0.0001). In rank order, the HIV infection rates were 30.3% for black non-Hispanics, 24.7% for white non-Hispanics and 14.2% for Hispanics. U.S.-born clients had significantly higher HIV rates compared with foreign-born clients (32.4% vs. 18.5%, p < 0.0001). HIV rates declined over six years from (32.5% to 15.9%, p < 0.0001) with significant trends observed for men and women; and for blacks, whites and Hispanics. Seroprevalence was 15.7% for clients identifying heterosexual contact as their only risk. Highly significant increases in seroprevalence above this heterosexual-contact-only `baseline', were found for clients disclosing the following high-risk behaviors: male-to-male sex, drug injection, smoking crack cocaine, receiving or giving money/drugs for sex, and sexual contact with a drug injector or HIV-infected partner. While highly significant elevations in HIV seroprevalence were associated with each of these definitive risk behaviors, even the baseline HIV infection rate of 15.7% in heterosexual-contact-only clients was markedly higher than that of the general population. These findings underscore the need to obtain routine HIV serology on all TB patients.
(UNITED STATES, ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICTS, TUBERCULOSIS, AIDS, PREVALENCE RATE, SEX DIFFERENTIALS, RISK, POPULATION AT RISK, ETHNIC GROUPS, SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR, HOMOSEXUALITY, SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS, DRUG ADDICTION).
English - pp. 253-266.
M. Lalota, M. Waters, Bureau of HIV/AIDS, State of Florida Department of Health, Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A.; J. M. Shultz, L. M. Garcia, M. A. Becerra, Comprehensive Drug Research Center, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Miami School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, U.S.A.; A. E. Pitchenik, Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, University of Miami School of Medicine, and VA Medical Center, Miami, Florida, U.S.A.; E. Valverde, AIDS Program, Dade County Department of Health, Miami, Florida, U.S.A.
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