Immigrants and New
York City at the Turn of the Century:
Essays on Employment, Education,
Health and Public Policy
Directed by David R. Howell
Project Overview
Over the last
two decades, the U.S. has experienced the largest absolute and per capita
levels of immigration since the early part of the century. Most have settled
in a handful of cities. Just ten metropolitan areas accounted for two-thirds
of all immigrants between 1985-90. Even more striking, almost 40 percent
of all (counted) immigrants in this five-year period located in just two
areas, Los Angeles and New York City. In absolute terms, New York City
has received more than two and a half million immigrants since 1965. By
the late 1990s, nearly 40% of the City’s population was foreign-born. The
demographic makeup of the city is being transformed at a pace not seen
since for a century.
In 1999, The
Henry Luce Foundation approved a proposal by the New School University's
International Center for Migration, Ethnicity and Citizenship (ICMEC) to
support a project of original and applied research on the public policy
implications of the rapid growth of immigrants in New York City and the
surrounding metropolitan area. The project was designed to document and
better understand some key dimensions of this new immigration. These would
include effects on metropolitan area institutions and populations, processes
of immigrant incorporation, and changes in immigrant well-being.
Our strategy
has been to focus on a few key dimensions of the regional political economy
crucial for immigrant incorporation and immigrant and native-born well-being:
the labor market; public benefits programs, welfare reform and health outcomes;
and education. Rather than looking for broad overviews of each of these
areas, the project aimed to advance public understanding by taking advantage
of the particular expertise of each of the authors. While this approach
would require some sacrifice in comprehensiveness, it seemed the most appropriate
for advancing the project’s main goal of producing important new policy-relevant
knowledge. Our ultimate objective was to produce a set of scholarly but
widely accessible and policy-relevant essays on the implications of the
recent wave of less-skilled immigrants to the metropolitan area.
We now have 13
completed essays by some of the foremost experts on both immigration and
New York City. The authors are all professors and researchers affiliated
with the region’s leading universities. They represent a wide range of
disciplines, from economics (about half of the authors) to urban and regional
planning, sociology, political science, anthropology and demography. Most
importantly, the authors were selected as much for their multi-disciplinary
and policy-oriented approaches as for their prominence and experience in
the study of the New York metropolitan area.
Abstracts of all the articles are listed below.
To read the papers available in full-text version, simply click on the
title of the article you are interested in.
Introduction
by David R. Howell, Editor
Paper
#1. "New York’s New Immigrants, Then and Now."
by Nancy Foner
Whether we look at
immigrant quality, race, or education, it is misleading to view today’s
immigrants against a set of myths and images rather actual realities. There
is a tendency to exaggerate immigrants’ successes in the good old days
and to minimize the difficulties they faced then -- just as there is a
tendency to exaggerate immigrant failures and problems now. This essay
attempts to set the record straight, looking behind the myths to show what
happened then and what is happening now. Specifically, I critically
examine three myths or popular images about New York immigrants in the
two eras: about immigrant quality; about racial differences; and about
immigrants’ educational success. A comparative-historical perspective that
examines immigrant New Yorkers in the two great waves not only dispels
some popular misconceptions but also brings into sharper focus important
aspects of today’s immigration. Although there are striking continuities
in the experiences of immigrants in the two eras, there are also dramatic
contrasts in patterns of incorporation, partly due to characteristics of
the immigrants themselves and partly due to the very different social,
economic, and political contexts in New York in the two periods.
Paper
#2. "Native-born Responses to Large-Scale Immigration: Outmigration
vs Interborough Moves in New York City."
by Katherine Hempstead
The 1990 PUMS is
used to analyze the relationship between immigration and outmigration of
the native born in New York City. The study population is limited
to native born males who lived in the five boroughs in 1985. The
relationship between immigration and the probability of various kinds of
moves is assessed using logistic regression. Unlike prior work, this study
examines a single metro area and does not limit itself to inter-state migration.
No significant relationship between immigration and the probability of
outmigration among the native born is found, but there is a significant
relationship with inter-borough moves of the native born. The fact that
immigration does not seem to have any effect on the likelihood of moving
to the suburbs or beyond supports recent studies which have found no evidence
of a labor market “push” effect of immigrants. However the positive effect
of immigration on the probability of inter-borough migration is consistent
with the view that the native-born move to achieve residential segregation.
Paper
#3."Increasing Opportunities, Declining Pay: Immigrants in the New York
Metropolitan
Labor Market, 1979-98."
by David Howell and Kimberly Gester
Immigrants accounted
for three-quarters of the 1.1 million increase in metropolitan area employment
between 1980 and 1998. This paper provides an overview of changes in the
jobs held, education attained, and earnings received by employed workers
in 14 demographic groups (defined by nativity, race, ethnicity, and gender)
and 3 job tiers (389 occupation-industry "jobs" grouped by job quality).
There was a pronounced “hollowing” of the middle tier, reflecting a massive
shift to the top tier by native-born whites and an equally significant
growth of immigrant employment in the bottom tier. Real earnings deteriorated
most strongly in the middle and bottom tiers for foreign-born Hispanic
workers, foreign-born white men, and both black groups. Among college educated
workers, the earnings declines for black workers (native- and foreign-born,
male and female) were particularly striking. The race/ethnicity wage gap
with native-born whites was substantial for all groups in 1979 and widened
considerably for white, black and Hispanic immigrants (both male and female).
Overall earnings inequality increased sharply, even when recent immigrants
were excluded. In sum, despite a strong economy and considerable employment
growth, these results indicate a substantial deterioration in the real
and relative earnings of immigrants in the metropolitan area, particularly
those employed in the middle and bottom job tiers.
Paper
#4. "Immigrant Entrance into New York City's Health Care Industry."
by Lynn McCormick
According to the "job ladder" notion
of an ethnic economy, new immigrants tend to replace jobholders of the
same ethnic group as the latter experience upward mobility in the labor
market. With a focus on nurse aides in New York City’s health care industry,
this paper finds support for this dynamic only prior to the 1980's, after
which employers restructured industry career ladders to deal with “bottom-line”
concerns arising from unionization and health sector cost containment efforts.
This restructuring allowed more recent Filipino and Indian immigrants to
“jump the queue” into good hospital aide jobs. Even though African-American
and Jamaican immigrants held seniority in these positions, co-ethnic networks
no longer worked to funnel their job-seeking peers into good hospital jobs.
Restructuring of the sector has reshuffled ethnic career ladders.
Paper
#5. "Immigrant Economies and Neighborhood Revitalization:
A
Case Study of Sunset Park."
by Tarry Hum
This study utilizes ethnographic research,
an original firm survey, and official data to explore the opportunities
and challenges faced by an immigrant community in a post-industrial urban
context. Sunset Park is a multi-racial, multi-ethnic immigrant neighborhood
with extensive ethnic economies in retail, services, and nondurable manufacturing.
Although immigrant-owned small businesses have been central to Sunset Park’s
revitalization, many of these new enterprises have thrived on a foundation
of poverty-level wages, casual employment relations, and non-union shops.
Sunset Park illustrates that while a revitalized small business sector
may provide increasing employment opportunities, other social goals of
equity and community well-being can remain elusive. Small business development
programs need to be redesigned and expanded to promote the quality of local
area employment opportunities.
Paper
#6. "Immigrants and Public Benefit Programs in New York City."
by Howard Chernick and by Cordelia
Reimers
This paper investigates changes in access
to the major public benefit programs by citizens and noncitizens in New
York City in the aftermath of welfare reform. Current Population
Survey data are used to compare receipt of public assistance, SSI, Medicaid,
Food Stamps, and subsidized housing, between the years 1994-95 and 1997-98.
In general, noncitizens do not show greater rates of decline in benefit
receipt than citizens. The exception is Food Stamps, where the percentage-point
decline for noncitizens was almost three times the decline for citizens.
Public assistance receipt dropped by almost 10 percentage points for Hispanics,
but remained essentially unchanged for blacks. The decrease was twice
as great for Puerto Ricans, who are citizens, as for other Hispanics, whether
citizen or not. Overall, the Hispanic-black differentials we find
may be characterized as gap-closing, as public assistance rates were greater
for Hispanics than blacks in 1994-95, but equalized by 1997-98. The greater
decline in Food Stamp participation among non-citizens poses an important
policy question concerning the extent of material hardship imposed upon
non-citizens. More specifically, it highlights the importance of city policy
in encouraging participation among those who are eligible.
Paper
#7. "Immigrant and Native Responses to Welfare Reform: New York, California
and the U.S."
by Robert Kaestner and Neeraj
Kaushal
This paper examines the effect of welfare
reform on the employment and marriage rates of three groups of low-educated
women: foreign-born citizens, foreign-born non-citizens and natives. Focusing
on the US as a whole and two states with large immigrant populations, California
and New York, we investigate whether the behavioral response to welfare
reform differed by date of immigration and whether there is evidence of
cost savings associated with the immigrant provisions of the legislation.
We also compare the response to welfare reform of foreign-born non-citizens
between states that did and did not make TANF-like benefits available to
recent immigrants to investigate whether there was a “chilling” effect
of the immigrant provisions of federal welfare reform legislation.
Our findings
suggest that federal welfare reform induced all three groups of women to
increase their employment. All three groups of women responded to
welfare reform and the estimated effects for foreign-born women were larger
than for native-born women. Recent immigrants had larger behavioral responses
to welfare reform than did earlier arriving immigrants. The “chilling”
hypothesis that has received so much attention in the popular press and
professional literature is not supported by our results. We found
that actual eligibility for benefits is an important determinant of the
behavioral response to welfare reform.
Paper
#8.
"The Perinatal Health and Health Care Utilization of Foreign-Born
Women in
New
York City, 1988-1998."
by Ted Joyce
Interventions that affect pregnancy
can have critical impacts on child, family and community well-being. The
waning of the crack epidemic, Medicaid eligibility expansions, and welfare
reform shaped the perinatal health of U.S. and foreign-born women in New
York City in the 1990’s. In this study, I examine how each of these changes
affected the utilization of prenatal care and the rate of low birth weight
for U.S. and foreign-born women. I conclude that although the Medicaid
eligibility expansions significantly lowered the proportion of births to
uninsured women, the waning of the crack epidemic had the most substantive
impact on birth outcomes. Thus, the gap in low birth weight between mainland
Puerto Ricans and foreign-born Latinos narrowed significantly with the
decline in use of cocaine and other illicit drugs in the 1990's. There
is a longstanding observation that the health of immigrants is often better
than the health of their native-born counterparts, including their children.
That such significant gains were achieved among such a high-risk group
of women offers hope that by discouraging adverse behaviors with taxes
and education, we may be able to eliminate the association between acculturation
and adverse health.
Paper
#9. "The Health of Immigrants in New York City: Demographics, Health Status,
and Health Utilization of Recent Immigrants."
by Marianne C. Fahs and Peter Muennig
This chapter investigates
the health status and utilization of New York City’s foreign-born using
publicly available data from vital statistics, hospital admissions, Immigration
and Naturalization Service, and the Census. In particular,
we test the validity of the hypothesis that immigrants are “draining” health
resources in New York City. We compare mortality rates for native-born,
foreign-born, and Puerto Rican born persons residing in New York City.
In addition we examine hospital utilization and costs, using the technique
of “small area analysis”. Finally we use multivariate analysis to
examine the roles that income, gender, race, ethnicity, years of residence
in the United States, housing conditions, and citizenship play on hospital
use rates among foreign-born and native-born persons.
We find that
the foreign born have lower mortality rates than native-born (and Puerto-Rican)
New Yorkers, and are much less likely to be hospitalized for most major
categories of illness than are native-born populations. We estimate
that the cost of providing hospital-based care to the foreign-born was
$312 million dollars less than the cost of providing hospital-based care
to an equivalent number of native-born persons in 1996. There is
no evidence to suggest that appropriately meeting the health needs of immigrants
will disproportionately reduce the availability of health resources for
New York City’s native-born population.
Paper
#10. "New Immigrants and the New School Governance in New York: Defining
the Issues."
by Alec Ian Gershberg
Since the early 1980s,
immigrant students have represented a growing and significant student population
in the U.S., primarily in five states. In New York City, recent immigrants
(those who arrived within the past three years) made up about 9 percent
of the City’s total public school enrollment in 1996-1997, while about
17 percent were limited English proficiency (LEP). At the same time, school
systems across the country have been undertaking reforms to improve effectiveness,
efficiency, and equity of schooling services to all students. State and
local school systems are developing new standards and accountability systems,
experimenting with school-based management, encouraging parent participation,
and considering various forms of school choice. Immigrant students and
families are affected by changes in governance, and since these reforms
are impacted by the nature of the students they serve, immigrant student
characteristics should affect the structure and implementation of governance
reforms.
This chapter
explores what New York City, New York State and the Federal government
are doing to address the needs of immigrant students, what reforms seem
promising, and what potential gaps in service still exist. The City and
State have virtually no organized policies to support immigrant education
aside from those policies aimed at English proficiency and/or bilingualism.
Providing effective support for recent immigrants may require different
strategies than for other “disadvantaged” student populations. The number
of recent immigrants and the unique set of issues they share may warrant
exploring opportunities to develop programs and policies designed specifically
to support them within the context of current school reform efforts.
Paper
#11. "The Experience of Recent Immigrants in New York City Public Schools:
Enrollment, Resources, and Outcomes."
by Amy Ellen Schwartz and Alec Ian
Gershberg
This paper makes
use of school-level data to paint a statistical portrait of the resources
and characteristics of the public schools attended by immigrant students,
their distribution across schools, and the relationship between resources
and outcomes, on the one hand, and the representation and characteristics
of immigrants on the other. We disentangle the experiences of immigrant
students from Limited English Proficient (LEP) students.
Key findings
include: (1) the LEP and immigrant experiences are different and we argue
that policymakers should target programs specifically at recent immigrants;
(2) school resources generally decline with the representation of immigrants
but increase with the representation of LEP students; (3) for school outputs,
a greater representation of immigrant students indicates better ‘output’,
while a greater representation of LEP students indicates lower performance;
(4) equally important, despite the popular perception of immigrants students
as Hispanic or Asian and LEP, a significant portion are black, white, or
non-LEP; (5) we do not find strong segregation among either recent immigrants
or LEP students; and finally, (6) we describe the mix of recent immigrants
and find that not all groups are treated equally by the school system.
Paper
#12. "Performance, Graduation, and Transfer of Immigrants and Natives
in
CUNY Community Colleges."
by Thomas Bailey and Elliot Weininger
This chapter analyzes
the educational outcomes of foreign and native students who start their
post-secondary education in two year degree programs in the City University
of New York (CUNY). Controlling for relevant demographic characteristics,
we find that foreign born students accumulate more credits and complete
associate degrees and transfer to four-year schools at higher rates than
the native born. Among students who have transferred, the foreign
born are more likely to complete a bachelor's degree. All of these results
are stronger for foreign born students who have completed their high school
education abroad.
Paper
#13. "Chutes and Ladders: Educational Attainment among Young Second
Generation
and Native New Yorkers."
by John Mollenkopf, Philip Kasinitz,
and Mary Waters
Immigration has dramatically
transformed the demographic terrain of New York and other large cities.
Over time, the full implications of this change will be worked out through
the lives of the children of the new immigrants, the second generation.
Drawing on a large scale study of 3,424 men and women aged 18 to 32 from
five immigrant and three native born ethnic groups, this chapter looks
at educational outcomes, particularly the completion of high school and
movement through college. In general, blacks (whether native or second
generation West Indians) did better than Latinos (though the Colombian,
Ecuadoran, and Peruvian second generation matched their performance), with
native whites, Chinese, and Russians doing best. Second generation
groups also tended to do slightly but consistently better than their native
born ethnic counterparts.
The chapter examines
a series of factors that might contribute to these outcomes, including
parents level of education, other aspects of family background, gender,
and individual choices about the timing of family formation. After
controlling for all these factors, the same basic group differences still
hold, with the Chinese second generation a positive outlier and Puerto
Rican natives a negative outlier. This analysis suggests that we
need to see individuals not as isolated units but as part of family systems
which can sometimes provide support to help people past (or out of) the
chutes into which some may fall and up the ladders which others may find.
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