Immigrant Filipinas/Immigrant Asian Indian women/non-Hispanic white women

Torres Stone, Rosalie A., Bandana Purkayastha, Terceira Ann Berdahl. 2006. “Beyond Asian American: Examining Conditions and Mechanisms of Earning Inequality for Filipina and Asian Indian Women.” Sociological Perspectives. 49:261-281.

To explore whether highly educated non-white immigrant women do as well as non-Hispanic white women in the U.S. labor market, this study examines educated women of color in the U.S. labor market using 1% of the 2000 Integrated Public Use Microdata Series census data. This study took statistics from people living in New York City, Chicago, and LosAngeles “to examine the effects of human capital, family status, and migration history on annual earning for white, Filipina, and Asian Indian women” (269).

The Dependent Variable is total logged wage and salary earning in the 1999 calendar year. The primary human capital variables were education and English language proficiency. Family status was measured by 0-not married 1-married. And number of children living in the house ranged from 0-9. Race/ethnicity was Filipina, Asian Indian, and non-Hispanic white. The researchers controlled for number of hours worked per year, age, occupation, and metropolitan area. Dummy variables included migrations cohorts (post-1990, 1980s, 1970s, pre-1970s).

After examining the earnings of immigrant Filipinas and immigrant Asian Indians women (groups with both higher levels of education than non-Hispanic white women, and who are proficient in English) compared to non-Hispanic white women, it is important to highlight the factors: migrant context and occupational racial/ethnic segregation. As income attainment has to do with social location, Stone, Purkayastha, and Berdahl (2006) found that income attainment is correlated with the reason that women migrated—as workers for labor shortages like nurses, as refugees, as wives—and the occupational context where women may be segregation by race/ethnicity. Migrant cohorts affect attainment, those migrated in the 1990s earn significantly less than natives, while those migrated before the 1980s earn more than natives.

Finding showed that these immigrant women were affected by time of migration, occupational racial-ethnic segregation, and race-ethnicity. Education and English proficiency positively affect income, as well as hours per week and aging. Negatively, for every additional child, income declined (probably because of the gender role of motherhood). There was no significant difference in earnings between Filipinas and white women after controlling for other variables. On the other hand, significant difference in earnings between Asian Indian women and white women remained after controlling for the same variables. Future research should focus on a longitudinal study and examine other Asian immigrant groups as well as Asian groups that are not immigrants.