Midterm Flashcards
(39 cards)
how do immigrants help our economy?
- high labor force participation
- consumption and purchasing power
- little competition for white collar/high paying jobs
neo-classical theory
- migration is an investment: cost benefit analysis
- focus on economic gains
- rational decision making
new economics of labor migration
- people don’t act as individual actors, decisions are made within groups
- risk diversification
- derived from neo-classical theory
segmented labor market theory
- primary vs secondary sector of labor market
- natives compete for primary sector, employers turn to immigrants for cheap labor
- push factors of sending country (poverty or low wages), as well as pull factors in receiving country (need for low wage labor)
social capital theory
- kinship ties in receiving country increase likelihood (and ease) of migration
- reduces cost of migration and sense of uncertainty
macro context of decision making theory
- urbanization displaces agricultural workers
- war and political upheavals in sending countries
- economic globalization which promotes uneven cultural links
physician shortage
- recruiting doctors from other countries
- most US physicians want to become specialists which pays more, though greatest need is in general care
- many of sending countries have physician shortages of their own
Three periods of immigration in U.S.
- 1600s-1930: mostly europeans (1830-1930 “century of immigration”)
- post 1930: migration slow down
- post 1965: “new immigrants” from asian and latin america
United States naturalizaiton law of March 26, 1790
limited naturalization to aliens who were “free white persons”
chinese exclusion act 1882
- suspended immigration of chinese laborers for 10 years
- extended multiple times, indefinitely in 1904
- suspended citizenship of all chinese people in US
immigration act of may 19, 1921
imposed national numerical limits according to the national origins of the white US pop in 1910
“the quota system”
immigration and national act amendments 1965
- eliminated national quotas
- instituted a preference-system for employment-based skills and family reunification
social conditions that limited immigration
- scientific racism (certain races are superior, resulted in quota system)
- world wars (made international travel more difficult and dangerous)
- the great depression
social conditions the encouraged immigration
- labor shortage in US
- the civil rights movement (change in quota system)
challenges faced by “old” and “new” immigrants
- physically demanding jobs
- discrimination/racism
- language and cultural barriers
assimilation for “old” immigants
- historical conditions favored assimilation (long hiatus followed by economic boom)
- inter-marriage led to europeans gradually becoming “white”, upward mobility
assimilation for “new” immigrants
- historical conditions slow down assimilation (continued immigration from sending countries, segmented labor market)
- immigrant enclaves and slow upward mobility
- assimilation as a “two way street”
How did PRWORA change immigrants’ rights?
- legal immigrants excluded form most welfare programs
- less access to training programs
two main principles of 1996 welfare reform act
- self-sufficiency
- family values
assimilation
“convergence of newcomers and host society”
also called “incorporation”
straightline assimilation theory
- “natural assimilation”: cultural assim leads to structural assim
- predicts immigrants and majority groups will become more similar overtime
- based on experiences of classic era immigrants
ethnic disadvantage theory
- cultural assim does not always lead to structural assim
- second and third gen immigrants may still face discrimination and institutional barriers
- based on post 65 immigrants
segmented assimilation theory
assimilation is contingent upon: parental human capital, context of reception, and family structure (three types of acculturation)
consonant acculturation
parents and children assimilate at the same rate
