A Portrait of Chinese America: New Study Suggests Economic Glass Ceiling May Still Exist
November 21, 2008
An economic glass ceiling may still exist for many Chinese Americans who are climbing the income ladder, according to a broad-based social and economic study published this month by the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA).
Although Chinese Americans are more educated — the proportion of Chinese Americans 25 years and older who have earned a college degree (51.7 percent) dwarfs that of the general population (27 percent) — and the median household income for Chinese American families also outpaces that of the general population ($62,705 in 2006 inflation-adjusted dollars compared to $48,451), Chinese Americans consistently trail behind their non-Hispanic white counterparts in every pay grade category. For example, among workers who have earned a bachelor’s degree, the median income for Chinese Americans was $55,571, compared to $62,185 for non-Hispanic whites.
“Contrary to popular beliefs, Chinese Americans often face extra barriers to economic success, despite their educational achievements,” said Larry H. Shinagawa, American Studies professor at the University of Maryland.
Controlling for gender and industry of occupation skews the data slightly. Chinese American women who have completed at least some college have a higher median income than non-Hispanic white women. Chinese American workers display slightly higher median incomes in financial, computer and engineering occupations, while trailing further behind, up to 44 percent, in legal and medical fields.
The overall data imply that, regardless of occupation, and given the same educational level, Chinese Americans earn higher than the national median income but lag behind their non-Hispanic white counterparts.
“Time and hard work simply haven’t been enough for Chinese Americans to fully enter into mainstream social and professional circles,” Shinagawa said. “I suspect there are many reasons such as language barriers or simply the difficulties that go along with being identified as an ‘outsider.’ In the long run, increasing mentoring efforts and leadership opportunities can enhance the Chinese American community. You need a pipeline, a network to help young professionals rise to their potential, and increase Chinese American participation in top positions.”
The study paints an intricately detailed sketch of Chinese Americans in the United States today, on topics as diverse as education, voter participation, marriage and citizenship.
An important overarching finding of the study was that Chinese Americans, frequently relegated to a singular ethnic group, are actually quite diverse. Factors such as country of origin, generation, language ability, degree of naturalization and immigration period were all found to affect the socioeconomic profile of Chinese American subgroups — in some cases to a drastic degree, such as household income.
“[This study] surely demonstrates the need to stop treating Chinese Americans as a monolithic group,” said Shinagawa. “Different segments of the population have very different needs.”
Socioeconomic stratification in the Chinese American community was found to be pronounced. Instead of following a bell curve typical of “normalized” population studies, statistics showed split distribution in personal income, residential pattern and education. Younger, later generations who were well educated and upwardly mobile formed a socioeconomic profile vastly different from older, multilingual immigrant generations. This “bimodal” society made a strong case for the level of diversity to be found within the Chinese American ethnic group.
“It makes for a rather bipolar picture of wealth and poverty, high and low education levels, white and blue collars,” Shinagawa said. “It’s a pattern you expect to see after a wave of immigration. But in this case, the long-term settled population has yet to achieve full equal treatment.”
Other interesting findings were that Chinese Americans accounted for 24.3 percent of Asian Americans in the United States, making them the largest ethnic subgroup; 59.5 percent claim mainland China as their country of origin, with 15.9 percent from Taiwan, 15.3 percent from the Chinese diaspora and 9.4 percent from Hong Kong; an estimated 70.2 percent of Chinese Americans are U.S. citizens.
Another interesting find is that 53.8 percent of all Chinese Americans lived in either California or New York, giving the two states the nation’s highest Chinese American populations. Chinese Americans are more likely to be married than the general population and have a lower divorce rate. Slightly more than one in 10 Chinese Americans has a multiracial background.
The study — a joint venture between OCA, a national Asian Pacific American advocacy organization, and the University of Maryland, College Park — was a comprehensive analysis of U.S. government census data.
Comments
2 Responses to “A Portrait of Chinese America: New Study Suggests Economic Glass Ceiling May Still Exist”
Got something to say?
Gee, really?
C’mon, folks, time to smell the coffee, if not the daisies sprouting over our graves.
Why are we obsessed with the likes of such futilities as “fu” as in “fu-gwai”?
Jerry, and a few others, have already proved to be “billionaires,” but no one, to date, has “invited” them to a ringside table at the “Oscars.”
Guess who’s “invited” to dindin?
The only answer here, folks, is “I don’t give a freakin’ damn for your gilded RSVPs,” OR your sheriff’s badges, I’m setting up my OWN “academies” AND blowouts, to wjich YOU are, pointedly, also NOT invited.
So, who cares? Other than wannabes, And those are the last of the wansdering tribes of losers.
Kidlets, consider:
The “foo fighters,” in the “scientific” community yet, today proclaimed earnest research in the possibilities of a “bug-sized” “spy” to launch in unfriendly precincts.
Wow. And wow again.
Doesn’t ANYone read or write or speak in any lingo but the Yankee version of Inglese?
These guys, like the juveys infesting the Beltway woodworks, are akin to the NASA types who find “frozen water” beneath the barren Martian landscape, OR one more “space-walk” in a multibillion-dollar boondoggle of epic proportions.
Meanwhile, back here on earth, I do believe, Big Pharma has “invented” a “pill” that works as well as chemo and/or radiation for the Big-C.
Yeah, and half our AMA prescriptions are “placebos”.
Time to carve the turkey, you know, that dry and proteinous Big Bird of agribiz profit, and time to check out the “bargains” online or off, thank you, Roger Dong, BEFORE those store closures and rotsa-ruck with returns and/or “gift cards.”
Oh, and Barack thus far has proved to be more “Barak,” as in tasteless AND not all that entertaining.
Still, there remains one glimmer of hope here, that the “man” may yet prove truer and stronger than those he has chosen for his ‘advisors.”
“Hope” springs “eternal,” well, at least “once more into the fray, dear comrades.”
For the rest, “bugger ‘em, ” one and all.
Unless they enjoy the procedure, that is.
In which case, let ‘em eat cake.
Frank
P.S.: Lacking the grace of a Fra Angelica for this upcoming “holiday season,” may I suggest renting a copy of Ingmar Bergman’s “Fanny and Alexander” for a lush and levitating post-”modern” “experience”? As in, man, oh Manishevitz, this one’s a keeper. For ALL of us. And it’s nourishing as well. Talk about “riches”!
I’m a bit confused on what you are trying to say other than everyone needs to wake up and get out of this thought cycle?