Abstract
Using data from the 2000 U.S. census and the 2010 to 2014 waves of the American Community Survey, we examine the importance of occupational niches in explaining earnings disparities between U.S.-born blacks and black immigrants in the United States. Our results show that, relative to U.S.-born blacks, most black immigrant subgroups have similar or greater representation in occupational niches. Employment in a niche occupation has a small but positive association with earnings, and the returns to niche employment are greater for black immigrants, particularly black immigrant women. Niche employment does not, however, explain earnings disparities between U.S.-born and immigrant blacks.
- © 2018 Russell Sage Foundation. Hamilton, Tod G., Janeria A. Easley, and Angela R. Dixon. 2018. “Black Immigration, Occupational Niches, and Earnings Disparities Between U.S.-Born and Foreign-Born Blacks in the United States.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 4(1): 60–77. DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2018.4.1.04. We thank participants in the “New Immigrant U.S. Labor Market Niches in the Era of Globalization” conference for their comments and suggestions and the Russell Sage Foundation for its support of the project. Support for our research was provided by grants from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health (P2CHD047879, T32HD007163). Direct correspondence to: Tod G. Hamilton at todh{at}princeton.edu, Department of Sociology, Princeton University, 128 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544; Janeria A. Easley at jeasley{at}sas.upenn.edu, Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, McNeil Building, Suite 113, Philadelphia, PA 19104; and Angela R. Dixon at angelad{at}princeton.edu, Office of Population Research, Princeton University, Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544.
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