Publications
2026
Geography, Coethnic Concentration, and Earnings Disadvantage of Asian American Men
RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 12(3): 50–74
Kim, Andrew Taeho and ChangHwan Kim
Article
Abstract
- Asian Americans are considered a model minority due to their high socioeconomic attainments. On average, they earn more than native-born Whites, but their tendency to live in relatively high-cost areas raises the question of how geographic distribution relates to Asian American earnings advantages. Given that less-educated Asian Americans lack market negotiating power, are vulnerable to local coethnic competition and exploitation, and thus do not fit the model minority stereotype, particular attention is paid to their labor market performances. The analyses using the 2010–2019 American Community Survey uncover that, except for those with advanced degrees, Asian Americans experience a relative earnings disadvantage compared to Whites after controlling for detailed residential areas. The disadvantage for less-educated Asian Americans is exacerbated in local labor markets with higher coethnic concentration.
Persistent Educational Advantages of Asian Immigrants’ Children, 1940 to 2015–2019
International Migration Review 60(2): 900–932
Kim, ChangHwan and Andrew Taeho Kim
Article
Abstract
- The educational achievements of Asian American children, especially those from lower backgrounds, are substantially higher than other ethnoracial groups. Hyper-selectivity theory finds the origin of such an advantage in the double selectivity of Asian immigrants after the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act and the formation of cross-class community resources. Utilizing the 1940 linked full-count Census, 1940–2000 decennial censuses, and the 2008–2012 and 2015–2019 American Community Survey, this study tracks changes in the educational advantages of Asian immigrants’ children. Our results show that in contrast to the anticipated dependence of the educational achievements of Asian immigrants’ children on structural conditions, the educational advantages of Asian immigrants’ children have remained remarkably persistent over time and across geographical locations. The influx of highly educated Asian immigrants is not associated with an increase in the educational advantages of lower-background Asian Americans. The implications of these findings are discussed.
The Rise in Occupational Coding Mismatches and Occupational Mobility, 1991–2020
Sociological Methods & Research 55(2): 659–699
Kim, Andrew Taeho and ChangHwan Kim
Article · Replication package
Abstract
- Occupation is a construct prone to classification mismatches by coders and description inconsistency by respondents. We explore whether mismatches in occupational coding have recently increased, what factors are associated with the rise in mismatches, and how the rise affects estimates of intragenerational occupational mobility. Utilizing the 1991–2020 Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey, which collects information on respondents’ current occupation and the previous year’s main occupation, we identify coding mismatches and compare the probabilities of occupational mobility based on four combinations of two variables. Our results show that not only do the estimates of occupational mobility between two adjacent years vary substantially across measures, but also that the magnitudes of intragenerational occupational mobility across measures become increasingly decoupled over time. We demonstrate that the likely cause of this divergence is the rise in coding mismatches between coders. We discuss the implications of our findings.
Nursing as Ethnic Capital: Perceptions of Intergenerational Niching among Filipino Americans
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 52(5): 1218–1242
Gambol, Brenda, Rebecca Karam, and Andrew Taeho Kim
Article
Abstract
- Ethnic niches (jobs or sectors where an ethnic group is overrepresented) help sociologists understand immigrant mobility across generations. While ‘niche’ can describe many industries, U.S. immigration scholars have largely focused on small business ownership. As a result, studies often conclude that the second generation avoids niche work in pursuit of educational credentials, professional employment, and thus intergenerational upward mobility. We argue this conclusion stems from conflating niche work with immigrant entrepreneurship, overlooking professional niches that offer socioeconomic stability and access to the middle class. Filipino Americans, long concentrated in nursing, provide a compelling case. This study asks two questions: Are Filipinos statistically overrepresented in nursing across generations? And how do first- and second-generation Filipinos perceive the nursing niche? Drawing on American Community Survey data (2010–2019) and 54 in-depth interviews with Filipino parents and their teenage children, we find strong evidence of intergenerational niching or the maintenance of a professional ethnic niche across generations. Furthermore, contrary to prior scholarship, we find that members of this community view the persistence of the niche among the second generation positively. We demonstrate that the perception of nursing as desirable work functions as a form of ethnic capital that shapes Filipinos’ distinct mobility patterns.
2025
Six Decades of Educational Assortative Mating in South Korea: A Research Note
Demography 62(6): 1809–1820
Park, Hyunjoon and Andrew Taeho Kim
Article · Appendix
Abstract
- This research note focuses on accurately documenting the trends in educational resemblance between husbands and wives in South Korea over six decades, from 1960 to 2020. Having undergone rapid social changes in recent history, including industrialization, economic development, and educational expansion, Korea offers a compelling context for studying long-term changes in educational assortative mating across different stages of development. Using 2% microsamples from 13 census datasets collected between 1960 and 2020, we construct marriage tables cross-classifying six educational levels of husbands and wives, both aged 25 to 45. Log-multiplicative layer effect models are applied to assess the husband‒wife association, controlling for changing marginal distributions of both spouses’ educational levels. Our analysis of 843,527 married couples shows that the association between husbands’ and wives’ education increases to a peak around 1995, after which it continuously declines. The inverted U-shape trend remains robust whether analyzing current or first marriages of varying duration and across different types of log-linear models. We provide theoretical and empirical discussions of major macro-level trends, especially the timing and gendered patterns of educational expansion, in Korea to contextualize the observed patterns of educational assortative mating.
Double Disadvantage of Black, Hispanic, and Asian American Women in Earnings, Revisited
Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 96: 101018
Kim, Andrew Taeho and ChangHwan Kim
Article
Abstract
- Prior literature suggests that women of color experience unique disadvantages as women and as racial minorities. However, empirical studies that hypothesize an additional disadvantage for women of color in personal earnings have not found supporting evidence. This study explores the family contexts and the local labor market conditions by which double disadvantage is mitigated. Using the 2015–2019 American Community Survey, we uncover a paradoxical pattern that the stronger the power of race in accounting for earnings inequality among men in a local labor market, the weaker double disadvantage married women of color experience. The relative performances of women of color compared to White women in terms of personal earnings, annual work hours, and hourly earnings are positively associated with the strength of race in explaining earnings inequality among men across local labor markets. No such paradoxical patterns are persistently evident among cohabiting or single women. The implications of these findings are discussed.
2024
Aging and the Rise in Bottom Income Inequality in Korea
Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 89: 100882
Kim, ChangHwan and Andrew Taeho Kim
Article
Abstract
- Korea is one of the world’s fastest-aging societies, with poverty and low income prevalent among the elderly population. Unlike other advanced economies, where top income inequality has driven the rise in income inequality, fluctuations in income inequality in Korea in recent decades have been dominated by changes in the bottom half of the income distribution. Using data from the 1998–2016 Household Income and Expenditure Survey and the 2012–2019 Survey of Household Finances and Living Conditions, this study explores the extent to which population aging is associated with changes in the top (P90P50) and bottom (P50P10) income inequalities by applying recentered influence function decomposition technique. Our results indicate that population aging, or the compositional change in age distribution, is the largest contributor to the rise in bottom income inequality during the 21st century. Other factors, including the composition and rate effects of education, rate effect of age, and structural changes in labor markets, account for, at most, a small portion of the changes. The implications of these findings are discussed.
2023
Is Hyper-selectivity a Root of Asian American Children’s Success?
Social Science Research 113: 102886
Kim, ChangHwan and Andrew Taeho Kim
Article
Abstract
- Asian immigrants’ children, even those from lower-backgrounds, tend to acquire higher levels of education than other ethnoracial groups, including White natives. Asian culture is often cited as a conventional explanation. The hyper-selectivity hypothesis challenges conventional wisdom by arguing that Asian American culture is an outcome of the community resources associated with hyper-selectivity. In this study, we assess the validity of the hyper-selectivity theory by examining the association between the magnitude of hyper-selectivity measured by the proportion of the BA + degree holders among the 1st generation Asian immigrants across communities and the likelihood of school enrollment for 1.5 and 2nd + generation Asian American children. Our results cast doubt on the hyper-selectivity theory. Asian American children’s school enrollment is associated with the magnitude of educational selectivity among Asian immigrants for neither high school nor college. The benefits of hyper-selectivity do not seem to be cross-class or cross Asian ethnic groups. The higher the hyper-selectivity in a community is, the larger the education gap between upper- and lower-background Asian American children. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Click here to view Publications before 2023.