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The Economic Disadvantages of Asian Immigrants: Credentialism or Disparities in Human Capital?

Wang, Bohui
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Genre
Thesis/Dissertation
Date
2024-05
Advisor
Goyette, Kimberly A.
Committee member
Klugman, Joshua
Bachmeier, James D.
Sanfelice, Viviane
Group
Department
Sociology
Subject
Asian American studies
 Education
 Labor economics
 Asian Americans
 Earnings disparity
 Gender
 Human capital
 Immigration
 Place of education
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http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12613/10320
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DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/10282
Abstract
This dissertation examines whether a degree earned abroad is less valuable for Asianimmigrants in the U.S. labor market than for White immigrants and, if so, the reasons for such disparities. Many studies have documented the existence of a foreign education penalty. However, the underlying mechanisms for the lower returns to foreign education are still being determined. Building on the demographic heterogeneity framework, this study aims to advance our understanding of immigrants’ experience in the labor market by investigating whether the lower earnings returns for Asian immigrants with foreign education stem from lower educational quality/transferability, as suggested by the human capital approach, or from biased practices in the labor market, as proposed by credentialism. Methodologically, this study will compare the earnings outcomes of Asian immigrants to those of U.S.-born Whites as well as foreign-educated white immigrants. Using ACS data from 2015-2019 on White and Asian workers aged 25-64 with bachelor’s degrees or higher, I analyze the impact of STEM majors and the English-speaking proficiency of the sending country to explore the effect of human capital transferability. Then, I examine the effect of a country’s GDP per capita and the rates of tertiary education to capture the effect of educational quality. To access credentialism, I compare the earnings differences for Asian immigrants who earn degrees in regions more culturally or historically similar to the U.S. to those degrees earned in other regions. Then, I examine the residual earnings difference between foreign-educated White and Asian immigrants to access queuing theory. Finally, I separate the study population into subsamples of men and women to investigate whether Asian immigrants’ labor market disadvantages are contingent on gender. Chapter 2 to 5 can be read as a stand-alone study that uses nationally representative survey data to study the aspects listed above. Results from these analyses show that the earnings disadvantage of Asian immigrants educated in foreign countries is largely due to the limited transferability of their human capital in the U.S. labor market rather than to credentialism. Returns to foreign education are higher for immigrants with STEM degrees or from countries where English is an official language. In addition to the human capital transferability, this study also shows that White immigrants seem to have an advantage over Asian immigrants if they were educated in places with longer linguistic and cultural differences compared to the United States. In addition, my findings support the explanation that female immigrants’ varied family experiences and migration paths are different from those of their male counterparts, thus leading to their notable disadvantages in the labor markets. The results indicate that establishing clear and transparent processes for recognizing foreign academic and professional credentials is a critical way to alleviate the lower returns on Asian immigrants’ foreign credentials.
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