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I often tell people to watch out for selection bias. Immigrants are a distinctly unique people. They're not just members of their foreign racial/national group,

I often tell people to watch out for selection bias. Immigrants are a distinctly unique people. They're not just members of their foreign racial/national group, they're members of their foreign racial/national group with the ambitions/motivations to leave. To make the abstract concrete. Canadians living in the US are often thought to be "just like" Canadians living in Canada. But they're often not. Often they're the Canadians that sufficiently didnt fit into Canadian culture, or found something immanently attractive about US life (at least the perception of US life)... So this study is kind of saying "The children of ambitious and effortful parents have higher rates of upward mobility than the general populace of US people"

5440 7y ago
That's very astute. I'm a Canadian living in the US and I ran away in 1996 during the terrible recession with the perception that life was better in the US.
nostrademons 7y ago
There's also significant selection bias on the entry side. U.S. immigration policies are heavily biased towards people with unique skills, high levels of education, and a fair amount of money in their home country, and biased against people who are likely to be a drain on public assistance. That means that most hyphenated-Americans have already passed two significant high-pass filters: they have to be willing to uproot their whole life to leave, and they have to bring enough to the table to convince U.S. immigration to let them in.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  There’s a huge asterisk to this selection effect, though: illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America.
  - barrkel 7y ago
    Unless you're an actual refugee fleeing imminent murder, rape and torture, migrating still takes a lot of get up and go.
    - davidw 7y ago
      "A foreign accent is a sign of bravery"
    - allovernow 7y ago
      Lack of opportunity, high crime, and institutional corruption are pretty strong motivators even if you're not in a warzone or on the run from cartels.
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    There's a different form of positive selection bias for that: to survive in a country where you're there illegally, cut off from many high-paying jobs because of that, and may be deported at any time, it takes a particular form of resourcefulness and ambition. You'd expect these people to have fewer book smarts than highly-educated Indian and Chinese immigrants, but perhaps more street smarts. And to the extent that resourcefulness, intelligence, and determination are genetic (most studies suggest a strong positive correlation), these traits would be passed on to their U.S. citizen children.
    - toasterlovin 7y ago
      > it takes a particular form of resourcefulness and ambition. Or your home country just needs to be significantly worse.
      - JakeTheAndroid 7y ago
        I mean, we see people in fairly terrible countries not relocate. Why haven't 80% of all Mexican or Central American citizens relocated to the US? Or conversely, why haven't tons of the homeless in the US made their way to Mexico? If these countries are really significantly worse, and that is the only factor pushing normal people to relocate, then we should be seeing massive population movements all the time. Instead, only the extremely motivated with a sizable risk appetite take the chance. And, one could argue that those two factors combined qualifies that group of people as non-standard.
        babesh 7y ago
        Actually a significant percentage have. The US is 16.7% Hispanic. That is over 50 million people. The population of Mexico is a little over 120 million. I would bet that if there were no barriers to immigration then you would see a significantly higher Hispanic population in the US. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Hispanic_and_Latino_Americans#Hispanic_and_Latino_Population_by_state_or_territory_(2000–2010) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Hispanic_and...
  - m0zg 7y ago
    It doesn't change the outcome though: even illegals are more likely to be upwardly mobile _from their lower baseline_. They can't take anything for granted the way a native would. I observe this in my (upper middle class) son: he thinks he's set for life, and doesn't put in _any_ effort whatsoever. I told him he's on his own when he's 19, he's a mere 3 years away from that mark, and it hasn't yet sunk in. He thinks he will always have upper middle class existence he's currently enjoying, no matter what, even though with his current grades there's no way he will get into a decent college. I personally was under no such illusion ever in my life, so I worked super hard to get to where I am today.
    - tartoran 7y ago
      Are you an immigrant yourself or a child of immigrant parents? Yes, because immigrants on average have it harder they also work harder. Usually their children reap more benefits but the children's children flake out. Not sure how much of a trend this is but I've noticed this...
      - m0zg 7y ago
        I'm a Russian-American immigrant, yes, a legal one. We had our kid when we were already mostly out of the woods financially though.
        tartoran 7y ago
        Eastern European fellow here. I came to the states about 20 years ago and the kid came about 2 years ago. Ive had it rough for a while as my dad passed and had to step in to help the family. Stress was something I wish I didn’t have to go through like that. The hardship made the ship sail better though, I understand why the first gen immig are more succesfull: they have to push themselves to the max
- namirez 7y ago
  > There's also significant selection bias on the entry side. U.S. immigration policies are heavily biased towards people with unique skills, high levels of education, and a fair amount of money in their home country Categorically false! Most of immigration to the US is family based; actually about two-third of them. source: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/17/key-facts-about-u-s-immigration-policies-and-proposed-changes/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/17/key-facts-a...
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    You take an initial immigrant who gets in because of the merit categories and then have them bring over all their family members, whose gene pool ends up in the U.S? Whose family values? This article is about upward mobility in the children of immigrants. What traits do children get from their parents? Most people would say it's nature (their genes) and nurture (their upbringing). All of these are widely shared with the family members of the initial immigrant, so most immigration being family-based does not invalidate this conclusion.
    - godelski 7y ago
      As far as I'm aware, there's no strong link between motivation and generics.
      - namirez 7y ago
        Or as Vincent said in Gattaca: "There is no gene for the human spirit."
        aaronblohowiak 7y ago
        it is a whole constellation of genetic, epi-genetic, environmental factors, and experiences in concert. to say that there is no genetic predisposition for behavior is... not confirmed by the science.
      - virtuous_signal 7y ago
- tathougies 7y ago
  > and they have to bring enough to the table to convince U.S. immigration to let them in. Eh... my parents came with zero dollars to this country as part of family migration (zero due to currency export restrictions from their original country).
  - vikramkr 7y ago
    did they come as refugees or did they bring skills that suggested they would likely get employed/be able to contribute to the economy/would use welfare benefits etc?
    - tathougies 7y ago
      Family migration means a family member who is a citizen guarantees their ability to support themselves. They did.
- Mvandenbergh 7y ago
  Wouldn't that lead to the opposite effect? If you take an above average subset, you will have less upward mobility in their children because of mean reversion. If your parents are top decile already then there is a lot more room below you than above you.
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    Only if their country of origin is meritocratic and market-driven. As many flaws as the U.S. has, it generally ranks pretty well on these aspects. Put another way, many societies have artificial ceilings on the social status and income you can attain regardless of your intelligence, education, drive, ambition, and resourcefulness. Caste systems, guanxi, racial prejudice, endemic corruption, drug cartels that will kill you if you don't help them out, organized crime, warlords that will kill you, lack of infrastructure, etc. When you leave that country and go to one that allows free contracts between people, your social standing - and your children's, to the extent that these traits are heritable - should rise to its natural level, where it would be in the absence of arbitrary restrictions. There's another level of selection bias where people who feel like all these arbitrary restrictions work in their favor don't tend to leave their home countries. So those people who you speak of who would mean revert - the folks that are above average and have a good deal in their home country - would be underrepresented within the immigrant sample, to the extent that they can realize when they have a good deal. (This is the same principle by which contracts and free trade raise general welfare: people who already have what they need choose not to trade and drop out of the sample, which then consists only of people who feel they are better off trading for something someone else has.)
    - Mvandenbergh 7y ago
      But wouldn't those artificial ceilings also prevent immigration applicants from having the "paperwork" to show their capability which is precisely what the American immigration bureaucracy will look at? It's not like they're letting immigrants in based on an IQ test, they're letting people in because they have elite degrees, are admitted to American universities, or have American job offers. All of those are indicators of status already achieved rather than potential status which has been supressed by local conditions in their country of origin. In other words, immigrants coming in through the highly qualified routes are already high status in their countries of origin. Indians coming to the US on H1Bs for instance are overwhelmingly from high caste social groups and educated at the best Indian universities.
- btilly 7y ago
  There's also significant selection bias on the entry side. U.S. immigration policies are heavily biased towards people with unique skills, high levels of education, and a fair amount of money in their home country, and biased against people who are likely to be a drain on public assistance. Clearly not the cause. The USA has accepted many waves of refugees. For example the Cambodian boat refugees. They arrived with no skills, no education, no money, and didn't even speak the language. There was every reason to believe that they would be a drain on public assistance. And yet the children of these groups also show much greater upwards mobility than children of people who were already here.
  - fwip 7y ago
    Refugees account for about 10% of immigration to the US.
    - btilly 7y ago
      True. But the fact that upward mobility is strongly evident among refugee groups says that a theory for upward mobility among children of immigrants should explain why it still happens despite all of the disadvantages of being refugees.
      - usrusr 7y ago
        If you start at the bottom there is a lot of up to rise into and no down to further sink. Same at the opposite end: all the nepotism and Ivy Leagues in the world won't be able to keep some billionaire spawn from sinking and there are no higher ranks to rise into. Their average mobility can only be negative. I guess I'd still prefer being a failing trust fund baby over the upward mobility of rags to better rags, despite a considerable delta in sense of achievement (rags to better rags might actually be happier with themselves).
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    Reminds me of one theory behind the success of immigrant "model minority" groups dating back to 19th century Jewish emigrants from pogrums being their community support network and a cultural values towards education. Of course none of this is in a vacuum and depends upon the host society and reaction. Disclaimer: Self determination and environmental determination both have their limits and maladaptive behaviors may have roots in trauma. It isn't meant to be any statement of intrinsic vice or virtue. I could see easily how refugees forced to cooperate to survive and fleeing horrifying death would support one another when in an unfamiliar new country and knowing there is no hope in heading back. I wonder how relevant the "hedonic treadmill" is to the phenomenon as well. Motivation and incentives having a positive impact on success is no surprise and unfortunately it isn't as easy or simple as just telling people to get motivated, making things better for them if they succeed, nor making things worse if they don't. Nor even more slippery sloped approaches like propaganda for social goods "Black Mirroring" a metric feedback loop that would be dystopian even if it worked.
- raverbashing 7y ago
  Yes, the bar has been going higher ever since (we might even say prohibitively so), however we know that not all immigrants go to the US through official means. It's a different kind of high-pass filter (not meaning necessarily that's easier).
- pkaye 7y ago
  A lot of countries have that filter. Canada has an explicit point based ranking system based on age, level of education, language fluency and profession.
spappletrap 7y ago
>they're members of their foreign racial/national group with the ambitions/motivations to leave. And resources and community connections... even if they come here with little or no money, they had to have something to leave. It's expensive as hell to move to a new city without a job lined up, let alone a new country.
- maerF0x0 7y ago
  > without a job lined up in many immigrants case they only can come w/ a job lined up (ie, they get a visa via a job)
justin66 7y ago
> To make the abstract concrete. Canadians living in the US are often thought to be "just like" Canadians living in Canada. But they're often not. Often they're the Canadians that sufficiently didnt fit into Canadian culture, or found something immanently attractive about US life (at least the perception of US life)... Or were just good enough to be offered a high paying job outside their country, such that emigrating was their next move.
- jbay808 7y ago
  Yup. Many Canadians I know in the US would love to move back to Canada if they could find a job there that would pay a similar amount.
  - datashow 7y ago
    Searching for job in a different country, moving to another country for the job, these are by definition ambitious.
- vikramkr 7y ago
  The fact that they were even willing to apply and try to get a good-paying job outside of their hometown is a huge indicator. People are reluctant enough to leave their hometown when the local factory closes and all the jobs go away because of the comfort of home, actively being willing to move is a big indicator by itself.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    I was an 'immigrant' from the US Midwest to Silicon Valley. Grew up raising hogs and making hay. One of 6 on the farm. Four of us left Iowa seeking a better life: two VPs of Fortune-500 companies; one entrepreneur (me); one wandering IT specialist. Our Iowan cohort we left behind are pretty much driving the school bus, working food service, mid-level office managers. So some correlation between 'willing to leave' and 'ambitious enough to succeed'?
allenu 7y ago
I think the "didn't fit into Canadian culture, or found something imminently attractive about US life" may be reading too much into things. It's more like those people just found good jobs in the US that weren't available in their country. I'm a Canadian and found a great job in the US and moved down. I didn't move down thinking the culture would be better and then found work.
- eralps 7y ago
  > I think the "didn't fit into Canadian culture, or found something imminently attractive about US life" may be reading too much into things. That is probably true for Canadians. It is definitely easier, faster, and more accessible for a Canadian to immigrate to the US. Fewer reasons can be enough. For immigrants from other countries even though good jobs is one of the priorities it does not always justify immigrating. There are often other additional factors that push people to immigrate.
  - allenu 7y ago
    Oh I totally agree with you about immigration from other countries not necessarily being about finding jobs immediately. My family (including me) immigrated to Canada from another country (a third world country) because the opportunities would be better. I can't imagine us having not done that and what kind of life I would be living today.
- sratner 7y ago
  I think you did find something imminently attractive about US life: said great job. Do not underplay the fact that many of your peers (a) wouldn't even look for "a great job in the US", and (b) wouldn't move for it if one landed at their feet. There are plenty of things I may dislike about US, yet I am also here by choice rather than necessity.
  - vkou 7y ago
    > (a) wouldn't even look for "a great job in the US", and (b) wouldn't move for it if one landed at their feet. 1. Those peers may have spouses/SOs, that, depending on their profession would turn into stay-at-home house-wives/husbands, if the peer moves into the US. This is an immediate show-stopper for a lot of people. 2. Those peers may value Canadian culture more then the person you're responding to. That doesn't mean that the person who moves to the US for better paying work values US culture. They may prefer Canadian culture - just not $200,000/year prefer.
onetimemanytime 7y ago
They're HUNGRY. (fill in the details)
christiansakai 7y ago
I am an immigrant (a lucky one, to obtain GC lottery). My US born peers considered me successful (relative to them). They often talks to me about their situation and I just gave them advice of what worked for me. Based on my conversation with them. I think it made me more aware that I'm definitely not a regular person even compared to my fellow home country citizens. I am more restless, more ambitious, more conditioned to harsh environments, whether in work or study, and lucky to have several innate talents. Yes I can say there is definitely a selection bias, but we can learn from one another, whether immigrant or US born. Everyone has their own strengths, weaknesses, and challenges in life.
- amf12 7y ago
  > I am an immigrant (a lucky one, to obtain GC lottery). > Yes I can say there is definitely a selection bias I think this is an anecdote. You might certainly be ambitious, intelligent and overall successful. But I quite don't understand the selection bias specifically in the GC lottery category. You don't really need any any education, wealth, ambition to apply for and get through the GC lottery. The only thing you need is to be willing to uproot your life and move (and this might be the example of 'ambition' in this case).
  - christiansakai 7y ago
    Among GC lottery. My life circumstances is generally pretty unusual from avg people. Broken home with multi generational multiple marriages and divorces, fights, debt, lawsuits and shady practices among family members. Survived riot and persecution that killed 1500 people (Jakarta riot May 1998, warning: gore visual). And other lucky and unlucky streaks. My friends who know my overall story told me that I am an anomaly, but they are still willing to seek my advice. Idk what else I can give them other than my anecdote.
tathougies 7y ago
> So this study is kind of saying "The children of ambitious and effortful parents have higher rates of upward mobility than the general populace of US people" But this is also important to note, as the common zeitgeist of the day says that upward mobility is impossible, but it is clear that with ambitious and effortful parents, children can have higher rates of social mobility. That is encouraging?
- datashow 7y ago
  Not really encouraging. You can't make parents more ambitious and effortful. This is basically saying personal efforts matter. I believe this is not most upward mobility advocators want to hear.
  - huherto 7y ago
    It is encouraging because these particular children have upward mobility.
  - leftyted 7y ago
    It only fails to be encouraging if you're ideologically opposed to the theory that "personal efforts matter".
  - tathougies 7y ago
    > This is basically saying personal efforts matter. I believe this is not most upward mobility advocators want to hear. Surely you're not implying that 'upward mobility advocates' mean that people will magically become richer while doing nothing?
    - datashow 7y ago
      There are people thinking all need to be done is just "fix the system" and then people who were making efforts will be selected.
rhacker 7y ago
Canadians are a special instance of people with RVs that want Texas/Arizona/Florida weather in the winter time, and some may have stayed.
rayiner 7y ago
That still provides profound insights into the nature of economic mobility. If children of immigrants have greater economic mobility than children of natives, that means economic structures beyond people’s control are at the very least not dispositive. I.e. if the factors that keep people born in the bottom quantile more likely to stay there were purely structural, such as inability of poorer people to afford housing in better school districts, then it wouldn’t matter whether parents are ambitious and effort full.
thawaway1837 7y ago
But that’s the whole point of immigrants. They’re a self selected group of people who are far more likely to take major risks to improve their and their children’s’ futures. In other words, they are self selected to be more likely to be entrepreneurs. If you want to build an entrepreneurial country you want a lot of immigrants.
u37eyddeue 7y ago
I don't understand the emphasis on immigrants in studies that's followed in the wake of President Trump. It almost always plays with the definition of an immigrant for signaling reasons when it's obvious that the biggest policy target has been a particular subset of immigrants. Discussing the superset just looks like dishonesty to people who follow both sides.
burnte 7y ago
That's exactly what it's saying, and I think it's an important message to get our with all of the propaganda against immigrants right now. These are highly motivated people, not lazy slobs like some people paint them.
- DiffEq 7y ago
  There is no one type of "immigrant" though either and thus the need for a selection criteria.
  - burnte 7y ago
    Sure there is, all immigrants are people who moved here from other nations. They may have different reasons, times, methods, causes, and there may be different subgroups, etc, but there certainly is a single group of immigrants just like there's a single group of Americans, sheep, and pizzas.
    - DiffEq 7y ago
      Surely you understood what I was saying but so we don't talk past one another: Yes there is a category of people called an immigrant that one can define. However when you look at groups or even individuals in that category there are certain differences, many times vast and very meaningful differences, between the things in each of those categories. So to treat the whole group the same would be foolhardy; thus the need for a selection process. If you had to purchase 10 sheep from a group of 100 would you not buy the best sheep you could afford or the best pizza you could afford?
      - burnte 7y ago
        Yes, but if that superior work ethic is a trait more frequently expressed in immigrants than natives, then that's important, and that's the distinction being made here. They didn't look for the best immigrants for this study, this was a study of random immigrants. The entire point is to show how this group called "immigrants" is different, not it's subgroups. The selection criteria itself was immigrant vs non-immigrant. you're saying that's not valid because it should have been more narrow, but it wasn't invalid because they were explicitly looking at the group as a whole.
Koremat6666 7y ago
Research related to IQ (which is not a very useful thing to be honest) and income levels have shown that over time the immigrant communities tend to regress towards the mean values of their home country. Indian immigrants being the only exception of this observation. Majority Indians come to USA on H1B and student visas
shados 7y ago
As a Canadian living in the US: I don't like beer, hockey, nor was I planning on having kids. I often joke that they kicked me out.
macspoofing 7y ago
So this reinforces the point that ambition and hard work pays off.
Waterluvian 7y ago
The only Canadians I know who aren't retired and work in the US are there for the money. Though I'm not sure what not fitting into Canadian culture can even mean, to be honest. I think it's way more complex than you describe: Canadians don't go through all the hoops to become American residents in order to work at Walmart... But I think South Americans probably would...

5440 7y ago

That's very astute. I'm a Canadian living in the US and I ran away in 1996 during the terrible recession with the perception that life was better in the US.

nostrademons 7y ago

There's also significant selection bias on the entry side. U.S. immigration policies are heavily biased towards people with unique skills, high levels of education, and a fair amount of money in their home country, and biased against people who are likely to be a drain on public assistance. That means that most hyphenated-Americans have already passed two significant high-pass filters: they have to be willing to uproot their whole life to leave, and they have to bring enough to the table to convince U.S. immigration to let them in.

toasterlovin 7y ago
There’s a huge asterisk to this selection effect, though: illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America.
- barrkel 7y ago
  Unless you're an actual refugee fleeing imminent murder, rape and torture, migrating still takes a lot of get up and go.
  - davidw 7y ago
    "A foreign accent is a sign of bravery"
  - allovernow 7y ago
    Lack of opportunity, high crime, and institutional corruption are pretty strong motivators even if you're not in a warzone or on the run from cartels.
- nostrademons 7y ago
  There's a different form of positive selection bias for that: to survive in a country where you're there illegally, cut off from many high-paying jobs because of that, and may be deported at any time, it takes a particular form of resourcefulness and ambition. You'd expect these people to have fewer book smarts than highly-educated Indian and Chinese immigrants, but perhaps more street smarts. And to the extent that resourcefulness, intelligence, and determination are genetic (most studies suggest a strong positive correlation), these traits would be passed on to their U.S. citizen children.
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    > it takes a particular form of resourcefulness and ambition. Or your home country just needs to be significantly worse.
    - JakeTheAndroid 7y ago
      I mean, we see people in fairly terrible countries not relocate. Why haven't 80% of all Mexican or Central American citizens relocated to the US? Or conversely, why haven't tons of the homeless in the US made their way to Mexico? If these countries are really significantly worse, and that is the only factor pushing normal people to relocate, then we should be seeing massive population movements all the time. Instead, only the extremely motivated with a sizable risk appetite take the chance. And, one could argue that those two factors combined qualifies that group of people as non-standard.
      - babesh 7y ago
        Actually a significant percentage have. The US is 16.7% Hispanic. That is over 50 million people. The population of Mexico is a little over 120 million. I would bet that if there were no barriers to immigration then you would see a significantly higher Hispanic population in the US. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Hispanic_and_Latino_Americans#Hispanic_and_Latino_Population_by_state_or_territory_(2000–2010) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Hispanic_and...
- m0zg 7y ago
  It doesn't change the outcome though: even illegals are more likely to be upwardly mobile _from their lower baseline_. They can't take anything for granted the way a native would. I observe this in my (upper middle class) son: he thinks he's set for life, and doesn't put in _any_ effort whatsoever. I told him he's on his own when he's 19, he's a mere 3 years away from that mark, and it hasn't yet sunk in. He thinks he will always have upper middle class existence he's currently enjoying, no matter what, even though with his current grades there's no way he will get into a decent college. I personally was under no such illusion ever in my life, so I worked super hard to get to where I am today.
  - tartoran 7y ago
    Are you an immigrant yourself or a child of immigrant parents? Yes, because immigrants on average have it harder they also work harder. Usually their children reap more benefits but the children's children flake out. Not sure how much of a trend this is but I've noticed this...
    - m0zg 7y ago
      I'm a Russian-American immigrant, yes, a legal one. We had our kid when we were already mostly out of the woods financially though.
      - tartoran 7y ago
        Eastern European fellow here. I came to the states about 20 years ago and the kid came about 2 years ago. Ive had it rough for a while as my dad passed and had to step in to help the family. Stress was something I wish I didn’t have to go through like that. The hardship made the ship sail better though, I understand why the first gen immig are more succesfull: they have to push themselves to the max
namirez 7y ago
> There's also significant selection bias on the entry side. U.S. immigration policies are heavily biased towards people with unique skills, high levels of education, and a fair amount of money in their home country Categorically false! Most of immigration to the US is family based; actually about two-third of them. source: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/17/key-facts-about-u-s-immigration-policies-and-proposed-changes/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/17/key-facts-a...
- nostrademons 7y ago
  You take an initial immigrant who gets in because of the merit categories and then have them bring over all their family members, whose gene pool ends up in the U.S? Whose family values? This article is about upward mobility in the children of immigrants. What traits do children get from their parents? Most people would say it's nature (their genes) and nurture (their upbringing). All of these are widely shared with the family members of the initial immigrant, so most immigration being family-based does not invalidate this conclusion.
  - godelski 7y ago
    As far as I'm aware, there's no strong link between motivation and generics.
    - namirez 7y ago
      Or as Vincent said in Gattaca: "There is no gene for the human spirit."
      - aaronblohowiak 7y ago
        it is a whole constellation of genetic, epi-genetic, environmental factors, and experiences in concert. to say that there is no genetic predisposition for behavior is... not confirmed by the science.
    - virtuous_signal 7y ago
tathougies 7y ago
> and they have to bring enough to the table to convince U.S. immigration to let them in. Eh... my parents came with zero dollars to this country as part of family migration (zero due to currency export restrictions from their original country).
- vikramkr 7y ago
  did they come as refugees or did they bring skills that suggested they would likely get employed/be able to contribute to the economy/would use welfare benefits etc?
  - tathougies 7y ago
    Family migration means a family member who is a citizen guarantees their ability to support themselves. They did.
Mvandenbergh 7y ago
Wouldn't that lead to the opposite effect? If you take an above average subset, you will have less upward mobility in their children because of mean reversion. If your parents are top decile already then there is a lot more room below you than above you.
- nostrademons 7y ago
  Only if their country of origin is meritocratic and market-driven. As many flaws as the U.S. has, it generally ranks pretty well on these aspects. Put another way, many societies have artificial ceilings on the social status and income you can attain regardless of your intelligence, education, drive, ambition, and resourcefulness. Caste systems, guanxi, racial prejudice, endemic corruption, drug cartels that will kill you if you don't help them out, organized crime, warlords that will kill you, lack of infrastructure, etc. When you leave that country and go to one that allows free contracts between people, your social standing - and your children's, to the extent that these traits are heritable - should rise to its natural level, where it would be in the absence of arbitrary restrictions. There's another level of selection bias where people who feel like all these arbitrary restrictions work in their favor don't tend to leave their home countries. So those people who you speak of who would mean revert - the folks that are above average and have a good deal in their home country - would be underrepresented within the immigrant sample, to the extent that they can realize when they have a good deal. (This is the same principle by which contracts and free trade raise general welfare: people who already have what they need choose not to trade and drop out of the sample, which then consists only of people who feel they are better off trading for something someone else has.)
  - Mvandenbergh 7y ago
    But wouldn't those artificial ceilings also prevent immigration applicants from having the "paperwork" to show their capability which is precisely what the American immigration bureaucracy will look at? It's not like they're letting immigrants in based on an IQ test, they're letting people in because they have elite degrees, are admitted to American universities, or have American job offers. All of those are indicators of status already achieved rather than potential status which has been supressed by local conditions in their country of origin. In other words, immigrants coming in through the highly qualified routes are already high status in their countries of origin. Indians coming to the US on H1Bs for instance are overwhelmingly from high caste social groups and educated at the best Indian universities.
btilly 7y ago
There's also significant selection bias on the entry side. U.S. immigration policies are heavily biased towards people with unique skills, high levels of education, and a fair amount of money in their home country, and biased against people who are likely to be a drain on public assistance. Clearly not the cause. The USA has accepted many waves of refugees. For example the Cambodian boat refugees. They arrived with no skills, no education, no money, and didn't even speak the language. There was every reason to believe that they would be a drain on public assistance. And yet the children of these groups also show much greater upwards mobility than children of people who were already here.
- fwip 7y ago
  Refugees account for about 10% of immigration to the US.
  - btilly 7y ago
    True. But the fact that upward mobility is strongly evident among refugee groups says that a theory for upward mobility among children of immigrants should explain why it still happens despite all of the disadvantages of being refugees.
    - usrusr 7y ago
      If you start at the bottom there is a lot of up to rise into and no down to further sink. Same at the opposite end: all the nepotism and Ivy Leagues in the world won't be able to keep some billionaire spawn from sinking and there are no higher ranks to rise into. Their average mobility can only be negative. I guess I'd still prefer being a failing trust fund baby over the upward mobility of rags to better rags, despite a considerable delta in sense of achievement (rags to better rags might actually be happier with themselves).
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  Reminds me of one theory behind the success of immigrant "model minority" groups dating back to 19th century Jewish emigrants from pogrums being their community support network and a cultural values towards education. Of course none of this is in a vacuum and depends upon the host society and reaction. Disclaimer: Self determination and environmental determination both have their limits and maladaptive behaviors may have roots in trauma. It isn't meant to be any statement of intrinsic vice or virtue. I could see easily how refugees forced to cooperate to survive and fleeing horrifying death would support one another when in an unfamiliar new country and knowing there is no hope in heading back. I wonder how relevant the "hedonic treadmill" is to the phenomenon as well. Motivation and incentives having a positive impact on success is no surprise and unfortunately it isn't as easy or simple as just telling people to get motivated, making things better for them if they succeed, nor making things worse if they don't. Nor even more slippery sloped approaches like propaganda for social goods "Black Mirroring" a metric feedback loop that would be dystopian even if it worked.
raverbashing 7y ago
Yes, the bar has been going higher ever since (we might even say prohibitively so), however we know that not all immigrants go to the US through official means. It's a different kind of high-pass filter (not meaning necessarily that's easier).
pkaye 7y ago
A lot of countries have that filter. Canada has an explicit point based ranking system based on age, level of education, language fluency and profession.

spappletrap 7y ago

>they're members of their foreign racial/national group with the ambitions/motivations to leave. And resources and community connections... even if they come here with little or no money, they had to have something to leave. It's expensive as hell to move to a new city without a job lined up, let alone a new country.

maerF0x0 7y ago
> without a job lined up in many immigrants case they only can come w/ a job lined up (ie, they get a visa via a job)

justin66 7y ago

> To make the abstract concrete. Canadians living in the US are often thought to be "just like" Canadians living in Canada. But they're often not. Often they're the Canadians that sufficiently didnt fit into Canadian culture, or found something immanently attractive about US life (at least the perception of US life)... Or were just good enough to be offered a high paying job outside their country, such that emigrating was their next move.

jbay808 7y ago
Yup. Many Canadians I know in the US would love to move back to Canada if they could find a job there that would pay a similar amount.
- datashow 7y ago
  Searching for job in a different country, moving to another country for the job, these are by definition ambitious.
vikramkr 7y ago
The fact that they were even willing to apply and try to get a good-paying job outside of their hometown is a huge indicator. People are reluctant enough to leave their hometown when the local factory closes and all the jobs go away because of the comfort of home, actively being willing to move is a big indicator by itself.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  I was an 'immigrant' from the US Midwest to Silicon Valley. Grew up raising hogs and making hay. One of 6 on the farm. Four of us left Iowa seeking a better life: two VPs of Fortune-500 companies; one entrepreneur (me); one wandering IT specialist. Our Iowan cohort we left behind are pretty much driving the school bus, working food service, mid-level office managers. So some correlation between 'willing to leave' and 'ambitious enough to succeed'?

allenu 7y ago

I think the "didn't fit into Canadian culture, or found something imminently attractive about US life" may be reading too much into things. It's more like those people just found good jobs in the US that weren't available in their country. I'm a Canadian and found a great job in the US and moved down. I didn't move down thinking the culture would be better and then found work.

eralps 7y ago
> I think the "didn't fit into Canadian culture, or found something imminently attractive about US life" may be reading too much into things. That is probably true for Canadians. It is definitely easier, faster, and more accessible for a Canadian to immigrate to the US. Fewer reasons can be enough. For immigrants from other countries even though good jobs is one of the priorities it does not always justify immigrating. There are often other additional factors that push people to immigrate.
- allenu 7y ago
  Oh I totally agree with you about immigration from other countries not necessarily being about finding jobs immediately. My family (including me) immigrated to Canada from another country (a third world country) because the opportunities would be better. I can't imagine us having not done that and what kind of life I would be living today.
sratner 7y ago
I think you did find something imminently attractive about US life: said great job. Do not underplay the fact that many of your peers (a) wouldn't even look for "a great job in the US", and (b) wouldn't move for it if one landed at their feet. There are plenty of things I may dislike about US, yet I am also here by choice rather than necessity.
- vkou 7y ago
  > (a) wouldn't even look for "a great job in the US", and (b) wouldn't move for it if one landed at their feet. 1. Those peers may have spouses/SOs, that, depending on their profession would turn into stay-at-home house-wives/husbands, if the peer moves into the US. This is an immediate show-stopper for a lot of people. 2. Those peers may value Canadian culture more then the person you're responding to. That doesn't mean that the person who moves to the US for better paying work values US culture. They may prefer Canadian culture - just not $200,000/year prefer.

onetimemanytime 7y ago

They're HUNGRY. (fill in the details)

christiansakai 7y ago

I am an immigrant (a lucky one, to obtain GC lottery). My US born peers considered me successful (relative to them). They often talks to me about their situation and I just gave them advice of what worked for me. Based on my conversation with them. I think it made me more aware that I'm definitely not a regular person even compared to my fellow home country citizens. I am more restless, more ambitious, more conditioned to harsh environments, whether in work or study, and lucky to have several innate talents. Yes I can say there is definitely a selection bias, but we can learn from one another, whether immigrant or US born. Everyone has their own strengths, weaknesses, and challenges in life.

amf12 7y ago
> I am an immigrant (a lucky one, to obtain GC lottery). > Yes I can say there is definitely a selection bias I think this is an anecdote. You might certainly be ambitious, intelligent and overall successful. But I quite don't understand the selection bias specifically in the GC lottery category. You don't really need any any education, wealth, ambition to apply for and get through the GC lottery. The only thing you need is to be willing to uproot your life and move (and this might be the example of 'ambition' in this case).
- christiansakai 7y ago
  Among GC lottery. My life circumstances is generally pretty unusual from avg people. Broken home with multi generational multiple marriages and divorces, fights, debt, lawsuits and shady practices among family members. Survived riot and persecution that killed 1500 people (Jakarta riot May 1998, warning: gore visual). And other lucky and unlucky streaks. My friends who know my overall story told me that I am an anomaly, but they are still willing to seek my advice. Idk what else I can give them other than my anecdote.

tathougies 7y ago

> So this study is kind of saying "The children of ambitious and effortful parents have higher rates of upward mobility than the general populace of US people" But this is also important to note, as the common zeitgeist of the day says that upward mobility is impossible, but it is clear that with ambitious and effortful parents, children can have higher rates of social mobility. That is encouraging?

datashow 7y ago
Not really encouraging. You can't make parents more ambitious and effortful. This is basically saying personal efforts matter. I believe this is not most upward mobility advocators want to hear.
- huherto 7y ago
  It is encouraging because these particular children have upward mobility.
- leftyted 7y ago
  It only fails to be encouraging if you're ideologically opposed to the theory that "personal efforts matter".
- tathougies 7y ago
  > This is basically saying personal efforts matter. I believe this is not most upward mobility advocators want to hear. Surely you're not implying that 'upward mobility advocates' mean that people will magically become richer while doing nothing?
  - datashow 7y ago
    There are people thinking all need to be done is just "fix the system" and then people who were making efforts will be selected.

rhacker 7y ago

Canadians are a special instance of people with RVs that want Texas/Arizona/Florida weather in the winter time, and some may have stayed.

rayiner 7y ago

That still provides profound insights into the nature of economic mobility. If children of immigrants have greater economic mobility than children of natives, that means economic structures beyond people’s control are at the very least not dispositive. I.e. if the factors that keep people born in the bottom quantile more likely to stay there were purely structural, such as inability of poorer people to afford housing in better school districts, then it wouldn’t matter whether parents are ambitious and effort full.

thawaway1837 7y ago

But that’s the whole point of immigrants. They’re a self selected group of people who are far more likely to take major risks to improve their and their children’s’ futures. In other words, they are self selected to be more likely to be entrepreneurs. If you want to build an entrepreneurial country you want a lot of immigrants.

u37eyddeue 7y ago

I don't understand the emphasis on immigrants in studies that's followed in the wake of President Trump. It almost always plays with the definition of an immigrant for signaling reasons when it's obvious that the biggest policy target has been a particular subset of immigrants. Discussing the superset just looks like dishonesty to people who follow both sides.

burnte 7y ago

That's exactly what it's saying, and I think it's an important message to get our with all of the propaganda against immigrants right now. These are highly motivated people, not lazy slobs like some people paint them.

DiffEq 7y ago
There is no one type of "immigrant" though either and thus the need for a selection criteria.
- burnte 7y ago
  Sure there is, all immigrants are people who moved here from other nations. They may have different reasons, times, methods, causes, and there may be different subgroups, etc, but there certainly is a single group of immigrants just like there's a single group of Americans, sheep, and pizzas.
  - DiffEq 7y ago
    Surely you understood what I was saying but so we don't talk past one another: Yes there is a category of people called an immigrant that one can define. However when you look at groups or even individuals in that category there are certain differences, many times vast and very meaningful differences, between the things in each of those categories. So to treat the whole group the same would be foolhardy; thus the need for a selection process. If you had to purchase 10 sheep from a group of 100 would you not buy the best sheep you could afford or the best pizza you could afford?
    - burnte 7y ago
      Yes, but if that superior work ethic is a trait more frequently expressed in immigrants than natives, then that's important, and that's the distinction being made here. They didn't look for the best immigrants for this study, this was a study of random immigrants. The entire point is to show how this group called "immigrants" is different, not it's subgroups. The selection criteria itself was immigrant vs non-immigrant. you're saying that's not valid because it should have been more narrow, but it wasn't invalid because they were explicitly looking at the group as a whole.

Koremat6666 7y ago

Research related to IQ (which is not a very useful thing to be honest) and income levels have shown that over time the immigrant communities tend to regress towards the mean values of their home country. Indian immigrants being the only exception of this observation. Majority Indians come to USA on H1B and student visas

shados 7y ago

As a Canadian living in the US: I don't like beer, hockey, nor was I planning on having kids. I often joke that they kicked me out.

macspoofing 7y ago

So this reinforces the point that ambition and hard work pays off.

Waterluvian 7y ago

The only Canadians I know who aren't retired and work in the US are there for the money. Though I'm not sure what not fitting into Canadian culture can even mean, to be honest. I think it's way more complex than you describe: Canadians don't go through all the hoops to become American residents in order to work at Walmart... But I think South Americans probably would...