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More than a quarter century of research has generated fruitful results and new insights into the understanding of the lived experiences of the new second generation, which broadly includes both native-born and foreign-born children of immigrant parentage. We critically review the burgeoning literature on the divergent trajectories and unequal outcomes of this new second generation. Given recent changes in immigration policy and in contexts of both exit and reception for new immigrants, we pay special attention to the significance of selectivity and immigration status. We begin by revisiting the canonical literature on assimilation and presenting the original formulation of the segmented assimilation theory as a critique. We then assess the impressive body of empirical research and discuss alternative concepts, models, and paradigms. We conclude our review by discussing the implications for future research on the children of immigrants.

Educational expansion has raised the influence of sorting across postsecondary educational fields on children's future life chances. Yet, little is known about horizontal ethnic stratification in the choice of field of study among children of immigrant parents, whose parents often have moderate absolute levels of education relative to native-born parents but tend to be positively selected on education relative to nonmigrants in the origin country. Using rich administrative data from Norway, we study the educational careers of immigrant descendants relative to the careers of children of native-born parents. Our results show that children of immigrants from non-European countries have a higher likelihood of entering higher education and enrolling in high-paying fields of study compared with children of natives, despite having poorer school grades and disadvantaged family backgrounds. However, immigrant parents' positive selectivity provides limited insight into why children of immigrants exhibit high ambitions later in their postsecondary educational careers. These findings document a persistent pattern of horizontal ethnic advantage in postsecondary education in which ambitious children of immigrants are more likely to enter into more prestigious and economically rewarding fields of study than their fellow students with native-born parents.

This comment is a response to Model's (2018) critique of my article, \"Labor Market Disparities\" (Ifatunji 2017).

Why is it that children of immigrants often outdo their ethnic majority peers in educational aspirations yet struggle to keep pace with their achievements? This article advances the explanation that many immigrant communities, while positively selected on education, still have moderate absolute levels of schooling. Therefore, parents’ education may imbue children with high expectations but not always the means to fulfill them. Swedish data on children of immigrants from over 100 countries of origin support this view: Net of parents’ absolute years of schooling, a high rank in the sending country benefits children’s aspirations, attitudes, and educational choices but not their test scores or school grades. The upshot is an “aspiration squeeze” where to emulate their parents’ relative place in the education distribution, children are left struggling against the momentous tide of educational expansion.

Although Latin American migrants to the United States, particularly Mexicans, are typically portrayed as poor and uneducated, some, such as Peruvians, are disproportionately well educated compared to those who never left their countries. This article examines who emigrates and why by comparing migrants' selectivity from Mexico and Peru. Using the Peruvian data of the Latin American Migration Project (LAMP), collected in five communities in Lima between 2001 and 2005, and comparable data for twelve urban communities from the Mexican Migration Project (MMP), the authors compare the determinants of out-migration from these two countries. The results show that the difference in migrant selectivity is not so much attributable to migrants' legal status, urban versus rural origins, demographic background, or geographic distance. Rather, a crucial difference lies in the nature of migrant networks, or how networks develop over time and how migrants utilize networks in migrating.

Despite being newcomers, immigrants often exhibit better health relative to native-born populations in industrialized societies. We extend prior efforts to identify whether self-selection and/or protection explain this advantage. We examine migrant height and smoking levels just prior to immigration to test for self-selection; and we analyze smoking behavior since immigration, controlling for self-selection, to assess protection. We study individuals aged 20-49 from five major national origins: India, China, the Philippines, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. To assess self-selection, we compare migrants, interviewed in the National Health and Interview Surveys (NHIS), with nonmigrant peers in sending nations, interviewed in the World Health Surveys. To test for protection, we contrast migrants' changes in smoking since immigration with two counterfactuals: (1) rates that immigrants would have exhibited had they adopted the behavior of U.S.-born non-Hispanic whites in the NHIS (full \"assimilation\"); and (2) rates that migrants would have had if they had adopted the rates of nonmigrants in sending countries (no-migration scenario). We find statistically significant and substantial self-selection, particularly among men from both higher-skilled (Indians and Filipinos in height, Chinese in smoking) and lower-skilled (Mexican) undocumented pools. We also find significant and substantial protection in smoking among immigrant groups with stronger relative social capital (Mexicans and Dominicans).

Combining unique, annual, bilateral data on labor flows of highly skilled immigrants for 10 OECD destinations between 2000 and 2012, with new databases comprising both unilateral and bilateral policy instruments, we present the first judicious cross-country assessment of policies aimed to attract and select high-skilled workers. Points-based systems are much more effective in attracting and selecting high-skilled migrants than requiring a job offer, labor market tests, and shortage lists. Offers of permanent residency, while attracting the highly skilled, overall reduce the human capital content of labor flows because they prove more attractive to non-high-skilled workers. Bilateral recognition of diploma and social security agreements foster greater flows of high-skilled workers and improve the skill selectivity of immigrant flows. Conversely, double taxation agreements deter high-skilled migrants, although they do not alter overall skill selectivity. Our results are robust to a variety of empirical specifications that account for destination-specific amenities, multilateral resistance to migration, and the endogeneity of immigration policies.

Immigrant health research has often noted an “immigrant health paradox”, the observation that immigrants are “healthier” compared to their native-born peers of similar demographic and socioeconomic profile. This paradox disappears as immigrants stay longer in the host country. Multiple arguments, including migrant selectivity and cultural and behavioral factors have been proposed as reasons for the apparent paradox. Recently, the field has focused on immigrant legal status, especially its racialization. We review the literature on the immigrant health paradox, legal status, and racialized legal status to examine how this debate has taken a more structural approach. We find that immigrant health research has taken a needed intersectional approach, a productive development that examines how different markers of disadvantage work concurrently to shape immigrants’ health. This approach, which factors in immigration enforcement practices, aligns with explanations for poor health outcomes among other racialized groups, and promises a fruitful avenue for future research.

The rate of Mexico-U.S. migration has declined precipitously in recent years. From 25 migrants per thousand in 2005, the annual international migration rate for Mexican men dropped to 7 per thousand by 2012. If sustained, this low migration rate is likely to have a profound effect on the ethnic and national-origin composition of the U.S. population. This study examines the origins of the migration decline using a nationally representative panel survey of Mexican households. The results support an explanation that attributes a large part of the decline to lower labor demand for Mexican immigrants in the United States. Decreases in labor demand in industrial sectors that employ a large percentage of Mexican-born workers, such as construction, are found to be strongly associated with lower rates of migration for Mexican men. Second, changes in migrant selectivity are also consistent with an economic explanation for the decline in international migration. The largest declines in migration occurred precisely among the demographic groups most affected by the Great Recession: namely, economically active young men with low education. Results from the statistical analysis also show that the reduction in labor demand in key sectors of the U.S. economy resulted in a more positive educational selectivity of young migrants.

Migrant selectivity refers to the idea that immigrants differ in certain characteristics from individuals who stay behind in their country of origin. In this article, we describe the selectivity profiles of recent migrants to Germany with respect to educational attainment, age and sex. We illustrate how refugees differ from labour migrants, and we compare the profiles of Syrian refugees who successfully completed the long journey to Europe to Syrian refugees who settled in neighbouring Lebanon or Jordan. We rely on destination-country data from the IAB-BAMF-GSOEP Survey of Refugees, the Arab Barometer, and the German Microcensus, as well as on a broad range of origin-country data sources. Regarding sex selectivity, males dominate among refugees in Germany, while among economic migrants, sex distributions are more balanced. Relative to their societies of origin, labour migrants are younger than refugees. At the same time, both types of migrants are drawn from the younger segments of their origin populations. In terms of educational attainment, many refugees compare rather poorly with average Germans’ attainment, but well when compared to their origin populations. The educational profiles for labour migrants are mixed. Finally, Syrians who settle in Germany are younger, more likely to be male and relatively better educated than Syrians migrating to Jordan or Lebanon. Migranten unterscheiden sich in bestimmten Merkmalen von Personen, die im Herkunftsland verbleiben. Der vorliegende Beitrag widmet sich der Beschreibung dieser Selektivitätsprofile. Das Augenmerk richtet sich auf die Charakteristiken Bildung, Alter und Geschlecht. Einerseits wird untersucht, welche Unterschiede zwischen Geflüchteten und Arbeitsmigranten zu beobachten sind; andererseits werden syrische Geflüchtete, welche den weiten Weg nach Europa auf sich genommen haben, mit syrischen Geflüchteten verglichen, die in die benachbarten Länder Libanon oder Jordanien gewandert sind. Die Analysen stützen sich auf zwei Datensätze zu Neuzuwanderern in Deutschland, die IAB-BAMF-SOEP Befragung von Geflüchteten und den Mikrozensus, sowie auf den Arab Barometer, der Informationen zu Syrern in Jordanien und dem Libanon beinhaltet. Außerdem wird eine Vielzahl von Datenquellen aus den jeweiligen Herkunftsländern genutzt. Während unter Geflüchteten in Deutschland vor allem Männer vertreten sind, erweist sich die Geschlechterverteilung unter Arbeitsmigranten als ausgeglichener. Darüber hinaus sind Arbeitsmigranten, verglichen mit der Bevölkerung im jeweiligen Herkunftsland, jünger als Geflüchtete. Gleichzeitig zeigt sich für Arbeitsmigranten und Geflüchtete gleichermaßen, dass sie zu den jüngeren Segmenten ihrer jeweiligen Herkunftsgesellschaft gehören. Hinsichtlich der Bildungsselektivität lässt sich festhalten, dass Geflüchtete im Vergleich zur deutschen Bevölkerung zwar zumeist schlechter gebildet sind, dass sie jedoch im Vergleich zur Herkunftsbevölkerung einen höheren Bildungsstand aufweisen. Die Bildungsprofile von Arbeitsmigranten erweisen sich dagegen als heterogen. Syrische Geflüchtete, die sich in Deutschland niedergelassen haben, sind jünger, häufiger männlich und vergleichsweise besser gebildet als Syrer, die nach Jordanien oder in den Libanon gewandert sind.