Determinants of socioeconomic attainment of Chinese American women: a multilevel analysis

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to examine the effects of individual characteristics, labor market sectors and community (MSAs) characteristics on the earnings of Chinese American women using the 1990 5% PUMS data. The individual characteristics are gender, race, age, educational, nativity and the presence of children; the labor market sectors include core and periphery. The MSA characteristics include core industry participation, occupational segregation and the concentration of Chinese population. Guided by the human capital, labor market segmentation and human ecological theories, this study is an attempt to integrate both the individual and MSA variables via Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM). The multilevel results indicate that investment in human capital and employed in the core sector, residence in the Chinese-concentrated areas contribute to the earnings attainment of Chinese American women. Group comparisons show that Chinese women attain similar economic rewards in the labor market as their White counterparts; however, both Chinese and White women earn significantly less than their male peers. An unexpected finding is that while Chinese women benefit from occupational segregation White men and women show reduced earnings from such segregation. The HLM results also suggest that most of the variance in the earnings lies in the individual characteristics, which merit additional research. The limitations of the study and the use of HLM program are also discussed.