Non-Native Son
Restricted Emigration, System Inescapability, and Defense of the Status Quo: System-Justifying Consequences of Restricted Exit Opportunities
Kristin Laurin, Steven Shepherd & Aaron Kay
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
The freedom to emigrate at will from a geographic location is an internationally recognized human right. However, this right is systematically violated by restrictive migration policies. In three experiments, we explored the psychological consequences of violating the right to mobility. Our results suggest that, ironically, restricted freedom of movement can lead to increased system justification (i.e., increased support of the status quo). In Study 1, we found that participants who read that their country was difficult to leave became stronger defenders of their system's legitimacy than before, even in domains unrelated to emigration policy (e.g., gender relations). In Study 2, we demonstrated that this increased system defense was the result of a motivated process. In Study 3, we broadened the scope of this psychological phenomenon by conceptually replicating it using a different system (participants' university) and measure of system defense. The importance of these two findings - the first experimental demonstration of the psychological consequences of restrictive emigration policies and the introduction of a novel psychological phenomenon - is discussed.
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Why don't we believe non-native speakers? The influence of accent on credibility
Shiri Lev-Ari & Boaz Keysar
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Non-native speech is harder to understand than native speech. We demonstrate that this "processing difficulty" causes non-native speakers to sound less credible. People judged trivia statements such as "Ants don't sleep" as less true when spoken by a non-native than a native speaker. When people were made aware of the source of their difficulty they were able to correct when the accent was mild but not when it was heavy. This effect was not due to stereotypes of prejudice against foreigners because it occurred even though speakers were merely reciting statements provided by a native speaker. Such reduction of credibility may have an insidious impact on millions of people, who routinely communicate in a language which is not their native tongue.
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Liberalism and the Limits of Inclusion: Race and Immigration Law in the Americas, 1850-2000
David Cook-Martín and David FitzGerald
Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Summer 2010, Pages 7-25
Abstract:
Most scholars argue that the global triumph of liberal norms within the last 150 years ended discriminatory immigration policy. Yet, the United States was a leader in the spread of policy restrictions aimed at Asian migrants during the early twentieth century, and authoritarian Latin American regimes removed racial discrimination from their immigration laws a generation before the United States and Canada did. By the same token, critical theorists claim that racism has not diminished, but most states have removed their discriminatory laws, thus allowing significant ethnic transformation within their borders. An analysis of the immigration policies of the twenty-two major countries of the Americas since 1850 reveals that liberal states have been discriminatory precisely because of their liberalism and elucidates the diffusion of international legal norms of racial exclusion and inclusion.
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Segregation, Immigration, and Latino Participation in Ethnic Politics
Rene Rocha & Rodolfo Espino
American Politics Research, July 2010, Pages 614-635
Abstract:
This article examines the way in which racial/ethnic context influences Latino support for ethnic political causes. Welch et al. argue that feelings of solidarity within the African American community intensify as the size of the African American population in an individual's residential environment increases. We extend this hypothesis to Latinos, while also considering how other scholars have hypothesized different structural patterns of residence among Latinos to influence their political behavior. We also consider how higher levels of in-group heterogeneity within the Latino community might complicate this relationship. These hypotheses are tested using data from the 1999 Harvard/ Kaiser/Washington Post National Survey of Latinos. We find that higher levels of segregation between Anglos and Latinos dampen the positive relationship between Latino group size and participation in ethnic political causes.
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Immigrant Status and the Value of Statistical Life
Joni Hersch & Kip Viscusi
Journal of Human Resources, Summer 2010, Pages 749-771
Abstract: Using data from the Current Population Survey and the New Immigrant Survey, this paper examines the common perception that immigrants are concentrated in high-risk jobs for which they receive little wage compensation. Compared to native U.S. workers, non-Mexican immigrants are not at higher risk and have substantial values of statistical life. However, Mexican immigrants incur much higher fatality risks than native U.S. workers and do not receive wage compensation for these risks. Mexican immigrants who do not understand English fare especially poorly. The evidence is consistent with Mexican immigrants facing different wage offer curves.
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How do very open economies adjust to large immigration flows? Evidence from Spanish regions
Libertad González & Francesc Ortega
Labour Economics, forthcoming
Abstract: We study the labor market effects of the large immigration wave in Spain between 2001 and 2006. In this period the foreign-born share increased from 6% to 13%, with a total inflow exceeding three million immigrants. Our analysis exploits the large variation in the size of immigration flows across Spain's regions. To identify causal effects, we take advantage of the fact that immigrants' location choices were strongly driven by early migrant settlements that arrived during the 1980's. We find that the relatively unskilled migration inflows did not affect the wages or employment rates of unskilled workers in the receiving regions. The growth of the unskilled labor force was absorbed mostly through increases in total employment. This increase did not originate in changes in the composition of regional output, but was instead driven by changes in skill intensity at the industry level. Regions that received a large inflow of unskilled immigrants increased the intensity of use of the now more abundant (unskilled) labor, relative to other regions. The key industries responsible for this absorption were retail, construction, hotels and restaurants and domestic services. These results are inconsistent with standard open economy models but are in line with recent empirical studies for the United States and Germany.
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Place of education, gender disparity, and assimilation of immigrant scientists and engineers earnings
Yuying Tong
Social Science Research, July 2010, Pages 610-626
Abstract:
Many existing studies have demonstrated the earnings disadvantage of immigrants in U.S. labor market. When examining the mechanism of such disadvantage, previous research has pointed to the factor of lower human capital as a portion of immigrants completed their education before immigration. This study builds on the previous research and further investigates both place of college and where they completed education on the earnings among immigrant scientists and engineers. In addition to the human capital, this study captures factors pertaining to acculturation. Using data from Scientists and Engineers Statistical Data System (SESTAT), I divide the immigrant scientists and engineers into fully foreign-educated, fully U.S.-educated and mixed foreign- and U.S.-educated groups. These categories are regressed against the native-born in a full sample and subsamples of men and women, respectively. The full-sample analysis shows that immigrant scientists and engineers who have received their college education abroad are at an earnings disadvantage, regardless of whether they completed their higher degrees in or outside the United States. However, their earnings can rise faster than their native-born peers if they completed their education in the United States. The results suggest that attending college and/or pre-college in U.S. plays a more substantial role in closing the earnings gap between immigrants and non-immigrants among scientists and engineers. Gender-specific analyses reveal that the earnings gap between immigrants and native-born women is narrower than that between their male counterparts, showing gender may play a more salient role in earnings disadvantage than immigrant status.
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Hospitable to others: Indian American motel owners create boundaries and belonging in the heartland
Pawan Dhingra
Ethnic and Racial Studies, June 2010, Pages 1088-1107
Abstract:
Asian Indian Americans own almost half of the nation's motels but have received almost no academic attention. This article's main goal is to explain how these ethnic minorities created a sense of belonging in their local towns (primarily in Ohio), apart from their co-ethnic communities, despite tensions with locals. Indian Americans felt marginalized from others due to their occupational, racial and ethnic statuses. But, they still created connections to non-ethnic locals and to surrounding institutions along these three statuses. How informants did so and what belonging meant varied based on their level of resources. Still, all persons found ways to connect to their local environment, separate from their ethnic group. Such belonging involved both recognizing and chipping away at surrounding hierarchies, but while simultaneously affirming them. The findings suggest that rather than a clear trajectory, adaptation can be a process of simultaneously advancing both an integration and social inequality.
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Does Crime Pay? Issue Ownership, Political Opportunity, and the Populist Right in Western Europe
Jason Matthew Smith
Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article contributes to the vast literature concerning extreme right parties in Western Europe by examining the effects of crime on the electoral success of these parties. Utilizing theories of issue ownership and political opportunity, this article argues that populist right parties appeal to voters who feel a sense of physical and social insecurity because of higher levels of crime. This hypothesis is tested using a data set covering 18 Western European countries between 1970 and 2005. The result indicate that populist right parties benefit from higher levels of crime as well as linking crime with higher levels of immigration. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of this analysis.