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The looming transition to diversity in western societies: Challenge and opportunity Richard Alba Graduate Center, CUNY

The looming transition to diversity in western societies: Challenge and opportunity

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The looming transition to diversity in western societies: Challenge and opportunity. Richard Alba Graduate Center, CUNY. An historic juncture for the west. Because of immigration, all western societies are facing a demographic transition to a much more diverse working-age population. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Page 1: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

The looming transition to diversity in western societies: Challenge and opportunity

Richard AlbaGraduate Center, CUNY

Page 2: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

An historic juncture for the west Because of immigration, all western societies

are facing a demographic transition to a much more diverse working-age population.

During the next quarter century, this transition will result from a conjunction of two forces:The exit from the work force of the large,

heavily native, baby-boom cohorts born after World War II.

The maturation of very diverse youth cohorts, containing many who have grown up in immigrant homes.

Page 3: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

2009

2035

Blue=non-Hisp. whitesRed=minorities

Men Women

US population, present & future (projected)

Page 4: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

Germany,2009

Light orange=Native Germans

Dark orange=Foreigners

Green=Naturalized & Second generation

Page 5: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

Immigrant-origin youth elsewhere

In the Netherlands, young people of immigrant origins account for almost a quarter (22.5 percent) of youth under the age of 21 (Statistics Netherlands, 2009).

In France, about one-sixth (17 percent) of all children are growing up in immigrant homes.

In the United Kingdom, the proportion of all children who come from immigrant families is also about a sixth.

In Spain in 2009, 24 percent of babies had at least one parent who was a foreigner.

Page 6: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

Not all immigrations are the same Immigration tends to be bi-modal. High-status immigrants bring high levels of

education and professional qualifications—Indians in GB and US—and their children often excel in western schools.

Low-status immigrants bring low levels of education and take low-skill jobs. They often come from former colonies and are racially and/or religiously distinct, such as North Africans in France—and their children face difficulties in western schools.

Page 7: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

Low-status immigrations & the second generation Two-thirds of immigrant-origin children in

the Netherlands have non-western origins, most are in families that come from former colonies or Morocco or Turkey.

Sixty percent of such children in the US have Latin American or Caribbean origins.

Half of immigrant-origin children in France have African backgrounds.

Page 8: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

The challenge of integration Meaning of “integration” in this context:

Young people of minority origins are prepared to function in the work force in ways that are similar to those of well-trained natives.

Without integration, the economic, social and political vitality of western societies are at risk, as mainstream populations shrink.

Page 9: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

Dimensions of educational outcomes School-taught skills, such as literacy: reasonably

well measured by international surveys, such as PISA. The basis for various international reports, with certain

problems of inference as a consequence Credentials acquired: more difficult to measure

because of differences across systems and variability of data. But credentials are a critical dimension of outcomes

because of their role in qualifying individuals in the labor market.

There is not a one-to-one correspondence between skills and credentials, in part because of “long route” taken by some in the second generation.

Page 10: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

Rough similarity of outcomes Consistent differences across societies on skills

tests between native students and the children of low-wage immigrants

Broad similarity across systems in credential differences The British exception

However, the U.S. does not come out well in these comparisons (despite its history as an immigration society)—it is found at the bottom margin of the range of outcomes observed.

Page 11: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

FranceGermany

Great BritainNetherlands

SpainUS

380

400

420

440

460

480

500

second generation

natives

Note: Second generation is limited to children of parents without secondary-school credentials

PISA reading, 2000-06

Page 12: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

Credentials of native and second-generation youth in selected countries

Page 13: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

Educational systems: Centers of fields of power

School systems are “force fields” for powerful social groups that seek to achieve their own ends, to pass on advantages to a new generation.

Theories of maximally and effectively maintained inequality (Raftery and Hout, 1993; Lucas, 2001).

Third Law of Educational Inequality: for every initiative to reduce inequality there is an opposing (but not necessarily equal) reaction to preserve it.

Page 14: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

Wherein lies the opportunity? Change = alteration to ethno-racial boundaries,

not simply enhanced opportunities for some minority individuals Example: mid-20th century assimilation of white

ethnics My claim: Key is non-zero-sum mobility, which

allows minorities to rise without threat to life chances of majority

Exodus of the baby boom from the labor market creates the prospect of non-zero-sum mobility during the next quarter century, into the 2030s

Page 15: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

The ethno-racial position of Irish and southern and eastern European immigrants Excluded from white Protestant mainstream by

religion (e.g., Ku Klux Klan, 1928 election) Problematic racial position betrayed by slurs

such as “guinea” Scientific racism “proves” their inferiority (e.g.,

IQ testing) Targets of immigration restriction: Johnson-

Reed Act of 1924 sets baseline for quotas at 1890, before new immigration

Page 16: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

Mass assimilation, 1945-70 Young ethnics caught up socio-economically to

white Protestant counterparts. Italians erased the education gap.Quotas limiting Jewish presence in Ivy

League were dropped. Marriage across ethnic and religious lines rose

sharply. Ethnics accepted as white, entered mainstream. Catholicism and Judaism became charter

religions.

Page 17: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

The sociological puzzle Whiteness theory But past boundaries were not just a matter of

racial distinctions but also of religious and ethnic ones.

Why would Protestant whites have surrendered their advantages?

The counterfactual alternative: A three-tier ethno-racial system, with non-Protestant ethnic whites in the middle, non-whites on the bottom

Why did this not happen?

Page 18: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

A theory for solving the puzzle Non-zero-sum mobility

Rapid emergence of mass higher education Transformations of occupational structure

Socioeconomic mobility → Social proximity to mainstream whites Post-war suburbanization

Ideological change promoting moral parity of ethnics Wartime journalism and post-war novels and films

focus on military “melting pot” for whites

Page 19: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

Similarities and differences between past and present Demographic changes brighten prospects

for non-zero-sum mobility, but not on the scale of the post-war period.

The present is a period of far greater inequality than were the post-war decades.

The educational system has changed between then and now—e.g., greater inequality, decline in teacher “quality.”

Page 20: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

Possibilities for the future Boundaries will not fade everywhere They could become more contingent—

dependent on socioeconomic position, skin tone, cultural and religious self-presentationFor some non-white individuals, race could

become more like ethnicity Inclusion of versions of Islam within European

mainstream (cf. contemporary American Judaism)

Page 21: The  looming transition  to diversity in western societies:  Challenge and opportunity

Possibilities for the future

Rising heterogeneity within minority populationsExample: Mexican Americans (Alba, Jimenez

and Marrow)Situation of Mexican Americans depends on

socioeconomic position, type of marriage and location with respect to large Mexican-origin populations

Many will be left out.