Black immigrants, education-occupation mismatches, and the poverty status of their children

Compared to the US-born, Black immigrants have higher child poverty rates despite their comparatively higher levels of schooling. This disadvantage is inconsistent with human-capital theory and is unseen among other immigrant racial groups. This research examines whether this inconsistency is explained by the influence of parental education-occupation mismatch status on child poverty. It shows that the parents of Black children in immigrant families are considerably more likely to be over-educated, or have more schooling for their jobs, than their counterparts in US-born families. Differences in parental mismatches generally explain the poverty disadvantage of second generation Black children and that of Hispanic-Black children of immigrants. Across race, the results also show that Black children of immigrants are more likely than their White, Asian, and other counterparts to have over-educated parents. In addition, the adverse influence of parental education-occupation mismatches are more concentrated among Black than non-Black children. Significantly, having immigrant parents with foreign schooling is found to increase the risks of poverty among all children of immigrants. However, parental foreign schooling does not explain the Black immigrant poverty disadvantage. Instead, among Black children of immigrants, the adverse consequences of parental foreign schooling are largely offset by the persistent disadvantage associated with racial minority status.

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SSRI-Gross Hall 270
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