Introduction
Variation in Intergenerational Transmission
Sources of Group-Level Variation in Intergenerational Transmission
Group-Level Effects
Variation in the Concept-Indicator Link Across Groups
Methodological Implications of Group-Level Variation in the Transmission of Educational Attainment
Aggregate Data and Ecological Fallacy
The Use of Parental Education as a Control Variable
Analysis
Data
Second-Generation Surveys: IIMMLA, ISGMNY, and CILS
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ISGMNY, conducted in 1998 and 1999, entailed a telephone survey, interviewing 3,415 young adults, aged 18 to 32 in New York City and its surrounding suburbs. The survey targeted second-generation Chinese, Dominicans, Russian Jews, West Indians, and Central Americans from Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. It also includes comparison groups of native blacks, Puerto Ricans, and non-Hispanic whites.
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Also a telephone survey, IIMMLA was conducted in 2004 and collected approximately 4,500 interviews with young adults aged 20 to 39 in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, comprising Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties. The sample has quotas for second- and 1.5-generation groups (Mexicans, Vietnamese, Filipinos, Koreans, Chinese, and Central Americans from Guatemala and El Salvador) and includes three native-parentage comparison groups composed of third- and later-generation Mexican-Americans, non-Hispanic whites, and blacks.
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CILS involved a longitudinal survey of immigrant offspring living in San Diego (California) and Miami/Ft. Lauderdale (Florida). The original survey was conducted in 1992, with samples of second-generation children attending the eighth and ninth grades in public and private schools in the metropolitan areas of Miami/Ft. Lauderdale and San Diego. The students were sampled again in 1995–1996, and finally in 2001–2003. Because we are interested in the final educational attainment, we use Wave 3 of the data, which provides 3,334 respondents. In Wave 2, CILS also asked about parental education and directly interviewed the parents of approximately one-half of the original respondents. We use this additional information in supplementary analyses to assess the impact of error in children’s reports of parental education on our estimates.
National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS)
Variables
National Origin
Respondent’s Years of Education
Parental Years of Education
Results
Parents | Respondents | Change Across Generations | Regression | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mean | Var. |
N
| Mean | Var. |
N
| Mean | Var. | Beta | SE | |
IIMMLA: Mexican (MX) | 9.7 | 18.3 | 399 | 13.3 | 5.7 | 462 | 3.5 | –12.6 |
0.13
|
0.03
|
Salvadoran (SV) | 11.7 | 15.5 | 82 | 14.1 | 3.6 | 94 | 2.3 | –11.8 | 0.03 | 0.05 |
Guatemalan (GT) | 11.4 | 17.4 | 52 | 14.0 | 3.9 | 58 | 2.6 | –13.5 | –0.06 | 0.06 |
Chinese (CN) | 15.2 | 18.0 | 145 | 16.5 | 3.2 | 152 | 1.2 | –14.7 |
0.15
|
0.03
|
Korean (KR) | 15.3 | 9.8 | 162 | 16.1 | 4.0 | 169 | 0.8 | –5.8 | 0.05 | 0.05 |
Vietnamese (VN) | 13.4 | 15.5 | 107 | 15.8 | 3.6 | 117 | 2.4 | –11.9 | 0.09 | 0.05 |
Filipino (PH) | 15.7 | 5.0 | 187 | 15.5 | 3.4 | 189 | –0.2 | –1.6 |
0.29
|
0.06
|
ISGMNY: China (CN) | 13.1 | 19.2 | 86 | 16.0 | 2.8 | 90 | 2.9 | –16.4 |
0.14
|
0.04
|
Colombian (CO) | 13.4 | 8.4 | 37 | 14.6 | 3.2 | 39 | 1.2 | –5.2 | 0.19 | 0.09 |
Dominican (DO) | 11.6 | 13.3 | 114 | 14.2 | 5.2 | 122 | 2.5 | –8.2 | 0.10 | 0.05 |
Ecuadorian (EC) | 12.5 | 11.6 | 57 | 13.8 | 4.0 | 59 | 1.3 | –7.7 |
0.19
|
0.07
|
Jamaican (JM) | 13.9 | 4.5 | 32 | 14.9 | 3.3 | 34 | 1.0 | –1.2 | 0.06 | 0.15 |
Puerto Rican (PR) | 11.7 | 8.8 | 137 | 13.1 | 5.6 | 146 | 1.4 | –3.2 | 0.02 | 0.07 |
CILS: Laotian (LA) | 10.7 | 15.4 | 37 | 13.6 | 3.0 | 40 | 2.9 | –12.5 | –0.08 | 0.07 |
Filipino (PH) | 14.9 | 2.2 | 320 | 14.6 | 2.4 | 309 | –0.3 | 0.2 |
0.33
|
0.06
|
Thai (TH) | 8.1 | 16.2 | 32 | 13.2 | 2.4 | 35 | 5.1 | –13.8 | 0.03 | 0.08 |
Vietnamese (VN) | 11.4 | 12.7 | 88 | 14.8 | 3.2 | 88 | 3.5 | –9.5 |
0.11
|
0.05
|
Mexican (MX) | 10.4 | 12.3 | 259 | 13.4 | 3.0 | 251 | 3.0 | –9.3 | 0.05 | 0.03 |
Cuban (CU) | 13.2 | 6.5 | 524 | 14.4 | 3.5 | 521 | 1.2 | –3.0 |
0.19
|
0.03
|
Dominican (DO) | 12.9 | 11.2 | 37 | 13.7 | 3.5 | 37 | 0.7 | –7.7 |
0.19
|
0.09
|
Haitian (HT) | 12.1 | 10.8 | 46 | 14.5 | 1.8 | 48 | 2.4 | –9.0 | –0.03 | 0.06 |
Jamaica (JM) | 14.3 | 4.7 | 44 | 15.2 | 3.4 | 46 | 0.9 | –1.3 | 0.23 | 0.12 |
Nicaraguan (NI) | 13.9 | 8.3 | 74 | 14.3 | 3.2 | 73 | 0.4 | –5.1 |
0.15
|
0.07
|
Colombian (CO) | 13.5 | 4.5 | 71 | 14.3 | 3.4 | 72 | 0.8 | –1.2 |
0.34
|
0.10
|
NELS: Mexican (MX) | 11.6 | 4.6 | 326 | 13.3 | 2.1 | 375 | 1.8 | –2.5 |
0.09
|
0.04
|
Cuban (CU) | 15.0 | 9.0 | 35 | 14.6 | 3.8 | 39 | –0.3 | –5.3 | 0.06 | 0.11 |
Puerto Rico (PR) | 12.9 | 7.3 | 73 | 13.4 | 1.7 | 79 | 0.5 | –5.6 | 0.06 | 0.05 |
Indian (IN) | 18.2 | 4.2 | 48 | 16.3 | 2.4 | 50 | –1.9 | –1.9 |
0.30
|
0.10
|
Chinese (CN) | 15.6 | 11.6 | 96 | 15.6 | 2.4 | 108 | 0 | –9.1 | 0.07 | 0.05 |
Filipino (PH) | 15.6 | 6.3 | 49 | 15.0 | 4.1 | 55 | –0.6 | –2.2 |
0.37
|
0.11
|
Korean (KR) | 16.1 | 8.7 | 60 | 15.3 | 2.9 | 65 | –0.8 | –5.9 |
0.24
|
0.07
|
Comparison Groups With Native Parents | ||||||||||
NH white (NHW): NELS | 14.3 | 7.4 | 6,477 | 14.2 | 3.4 | 6,797 | –0.2 | –4.0 |
0.28
|
0.01
|
ISGMNY | 15.3 | 8.2 | 246 | 15.5 | 5.8 | 249 | 0.1 | –2.4 |
0.41
|
0.05
|
IIMMLA | 15.0 | 7.6 | 309 | 14.8 | 5.2 | 318 | –0.2 | –2.4 |
0.31
|
0.04
|
NH black (BLK): ISGMNY | 13.7 | 6.9 | 229 | 13.5 | 4.6 | 249 | –0.2 | –2.3 |
0.28
|
0.05
|
NELS | 13.7 | 6.3 | 714 | 13.6 | 2.8 | 779 | 0 | –3.6 |
0.16
|
0.02
|
IIMMLA | 14.0 | 6.5 | 294 | 13.8 | 3.7 | 312 | –0.1 | –2.7 |
0.22
|
0.04
|
Mexican 3rd gen. (MX3): IIMMLA | 12.9 | 4.9 | 271 | 13.4 | 4.2 | 289 | 0.5 | –0.7 |
0.39
|
0.05
|
Puerto Rican (PR3): ISGMNY | 12.4 | 5.9 | 50 | 13.2 | 5.5 | 53 | 0.7 | –0.4 | 0.13 | 0.14 |
Model 1 | Model 1b | Model 2 | Model 3 | Model 4 | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Coef. | SE |
t
| Coef. | SE |
t
| Coef. | SE |
t
| Coef. | SE |
t
| Coef. | SE |
z
| |
Intercept | 8.65 | 1.63 | 5.32 | 6.40 | 1.95 | 3.28 | 11.24 | 0.48 | 23.50 | 10.96 | 0.24 | 45.75 | 8.87 | 0.84 | 10.61 |
Mean of Parental Education | 0.35 | 0.06 | 5.52 | 0.43 | 0.05 | 8.53 | 0.22 | 0.06 | 3.53 | ||||||
Parental Education | 0.11 | 0.01 | 11.67 | 0.17 | 0.01 | 20.14 | 0.12 | 0.01 | 12.44 | ||||||
Age | 0.05 | 0.06 | 0.96 | 0.10 | 0.07 | 1.44 | 0.03 | 0.01 | 3.71 | 0.03 | 0.01 | 4.15 | 0.05 | 0.01 | 6.21 |
National Origin Index | Yes | No | |||||||||||||
Weighted to U.S. Population | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | ||||||||||
N
| 18 | 18 | 3,753 | 3,753 | 3,753 | ||||||||||
Clusters | 18 | ||||||||||||||
Sigma U | 0.50 | ||||||||||||||
Sigma E | 1.83 | ||||||||||||||
Rho | 0.07 |
Variation in Intergenerational Transmission of Education
Measurement Error and Other Caveats
Regression | Latent Variable Model | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Using Wave 1 | Using Wave 2 | |||||
Coef. |
z
| Coef. |
z
| Coef. |
z
| |
Father’s Education | 0.09 | 5.78 | 0.09 | 5.47 | 0.12 | 4.32 |
Mean of Father’s Education | 0.2 | 1.89 | 0.16 | 1.67 | 0.14 | 1.81 |
N
| 1,312 | 1,289 | 1,559 | |||
Mother’s Education | 0.13 | 8.06 | 0.11 | 7.00 | 0.16 | 4.18 |
Mean of Mother’s Education | 0.12 | 1.61 | 0.09 | 1.31 | 0.04 | 0.42 |
N
| 1,383 | 1,340 | 1,559 |