Mariano Sana

Immigrants and Natives in U.S. Science and Engineering Occupations, 1994–2006

Between 1994 and 2006, the ratio of foreign-born scientists and engineers (FSE) to native scientists and engineers (NSE) doubled. I decompose this change into a migration effect (which accounts for migration in general), a proportional college effect (which accounts for the relative proportions of college graduates among migrant and native workers), and a proportional science and engineering (S&E) effect (which accounts for the relative proportions of S&Es among migrant and native college-educated workers). Results show that the migration effect explains about three-quarters of the increase in FSE/NSE during the entire period under study. The proportional S&E effect, which captures changes in the ratio as a result of immigration of S&Es in excess of what would be expected from general migration alone, was largest in 1995–1998, which were years of sustained economic growth. Conversely, a slower economy coincided with a declining proportional S&E effect after 2000. Increases in the annual cap on H-1B visas, an important avenue of entry for foreign-born S&Es, had little effect on the ratio. In short, during 1994–2006, the association between economic swings and the specific, more than proportional migration of S&Es was much stronger than the association between the latter and changes in the H-1B cap.

Insiders, Outsiders, and the Editing of Inconsistent Survey Data

Data editing, a crucial task in the data production process, has received little scientific attention. Consequently, there is no consensus among social scientists about how data should be edited or by whom. While some argue that it should be left to data managers and data users, others claim that it is primarily a task for fieldworkers. The authors review these divergent approaches to editing and evaluate the underlying theoretical arguments. Results are reported from a methodological experiment in which different types of actors who are party to the data production and research process were asked to solve artificially generated inconsistencies in real survey data. Results are informative on two counts. First, the least accurate editors were the researchers with no field experience in the survey sites. Second, when provided with only partial information on which to make editing decisions, fieldworkers edited more accurately than both data managers and data users.

Self-administered Questions and Interviewer–Respondent Familiarity

We examine the effects of interviewer–respondent familiarity on both response patterns and rates of item nonresponse when self-administered questions (SAQs) are used. We use SAQ data from a survey in which the researchers experimentally ensured that there would be varying degrees of familiarity between interviewers and respondents. Our results reveal only minimal differences in response patterns by degree of prior acquaintance between interviewer and respondent, indicating that SAQs are effective at eliminating potential bias stemming from such relationships. Our results for item nonresponse depend on how we measure the relationship between interviewer and respondent; but in all cases, it is clear that prior knowledge of one another, far from harmful, leads to low nonresponse rates to SAQs. Thus, researchers using SAQs may not need to adhere to the norm that interviewers and respondents must be strangers, with practical and cost-effective consequences for data collection.

A test of the stranger-interviewer norm in the Dominican Republic

We offer the first empirical test of the ‘stranger-interviewer norm’, according to which interviewers in social, demographic, and health surveys should be strangers—not personally familiar with respondents. We use data from an experimental survey in the Dominican Republic that featured three types of interviewer: from out of town (outsiders); local but unknown to the respondent (local-strangers); and local with a previous relationship to the respondent (insiders). We were able to validate answers to up to 18 questions per respondent, mainly by checking official documents in their possession. Contrary to expectations derived from the stranger-interviewer norm, respondents were more reluctant to show the documents needed for validation when the interviewer was an outsider. Furthermore, and again at odds with the stranger-interviewer norm, we found no difference in accuracy by type of interviewer. Our results have important implications for the selection of survey interviewers in less developed and non-Western settings.

Family Planning for Strangers: An Experiment on the Validity of Reported Contraceptive Use.

Sterilization levels reported in the Dominican Republic appear well above what we would normally expect given prevailing patterns in the region. We suspect that the use of strangers as interviewers—the normative approach in data collection in both developed and developing country settings—may be partly responsible for this result, and may underlie a long history of bias in family planning data. We present findings from a field experiment conducted in a Dominican town in 2010, where interviewer assignment was randomized by level of preexisting level of familiarity between interviewer and respondent. In our data, sterilization use is higher when the interviewer is an outsider, as opposed to someone known to the respondent or from the same community. In addition, high sterilization use is correlated with a propensity of respondents to present themselves in a positive light to interviewers. These results call into question the routine use of strangers and outsiders as interviewers in demographic and health surveys.

Strangers in the Field: A Methodological Experiment on Interviewer–Respondent Familiarity

Evaluating a long–term methodological norm – the use of interviewers who have no prior social relationship to respondents – we compare response patterns across levels of interviewer–respondent familiarity. We differentiate three distinct levels of interviewer–respondent familiarity, based on whether the interviewer is directly acquainted with the respondent or their family, acquainted with the research setting, or is a complete outsider. We also identify three mechanisms through which variability in interviewer–respondent familiarity can affect survey responses: the effort a respondent is willing to make; their level of trust in the interviewer; and interview–specific situational factors. Using data from a methodological experiment fielded in the Dominican Republic, we then gauge the effects of each of these on a range of behavioral and attitudinal questions. Empirical results suggest that respondents expend marginally more effort in answering questions posed by insider–interviewers, and that they also lie less to insider–interviewers. Differences in responses to “trust” questions also largely favor insider–interviewers. Overall, therefore, local interviewers, including those whom, in blatant violation of the stranger–interviewer norm, have a prior relationship with the respondent, collect superior data on some items. And on almost no item do they collect data that are measurably worse.

Latino Heartland: Of Borders and Belonging in the Midwest

for policymakers attempting to address issues of immigrant mobility and integration by drawing on research from a wide range of disciplines and theoretical approaches. This volume offers an important perspective into the intersections between immigration and work, underscoring many of the salient issues in this field today. While the conclusions mirror those of Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou, this text distinguishes itself from earlier works on immigration and work by providing an updated snapshot and focusing on emerging themes within the field. This book is widely accessible and would be ideal for academics or researchers interested in enhancing their knowledge of immigration, employment, citizenship, policymaking, and social justice. Its use in the classroom would be beneficial for both undergraduate and graduate students pursuing degrees in sociology and for those who seek to specialize in demography, immigration, race/ethnicity, gender, migrant labor, and social stratification.

Remembering the Samsui Women: Migration and Social Memory in Singapore and China

female sufferers adds further difficulty to its quest for legitimacy. Linked historically to the sensitive upper-class woman, the migraine has a history presumed to be associated with the female temperament, not unlike a range of other conditions: chlorosis, neurasthenia, and hysteria. In contradistinction to these conditions, however, migraine is still very much a part of the current disease-scape, ranked by the World Health Organization nineteenth in causes of disability worldwide (twelfth in women). Even though contemporary explanations locate migraine in the brain, rather than in the character of the sufferer, Kempnerexplains that this doesn’t suffice to offer migraine the legitimacy that other physical locations of disease might have; the brain, she writes, is particularly prone to moralizing discourses. Moralizing around migraine is strongly gendered, writes Kempner, even to the extent that severe headaches in men are differently labelled. The cluster headache, more commonly experienced by men, causes incapacitating pain. However, the approach to and discourses around the cluster headache, and the contrast of this approach to that toward the migraine, underline the role that gender plays not only in the disorders, but in the legitimacy granted one over the other. This very thorough and evocative description of the social and, particularly, gendered treatment of migraine is the result of extensive analysis of ethnographic, pharmaceutical, media, online, and medical accounts of migraine and its social treatment and consequences. Kempner encountered a range of migraine stakeholders, including headache specialists, advocates, and pharmaceutical advertisers, and considered each a knowledge broker in the cultural construction of headache disorders. Headache conferences were one site at which science and private industry convened. Advocacy groups often worked in cooperation with headache specialists, while the internet provided the forum for the expression of popular lay knowledge and concerns. Kempner’s analysis leads her to claim that persistent gendered categories of hysterical, delicate women and stoic, long-suffering men are projected on headaches to explain the migraine (in contrast to the cluster headache) as a woman’s disease. This gendered depiction infuses virtually all discourses around migraine, writes Kempner, and results in its trivialization. ‘‘The stigma attached to the migraine contributes to the legitimacy deficit, eroding the identity of the person with the migraine, harming her ability to seek and receive care, and embedding itself in institutional policies about people in pain’’ (p. 168). The challenge for those who suffer from migraines and for advocates who fight to bring attention to the plight of the former is to address this moral component. Even in the contemporary shift toward seeing the migraine as neurobiological in nature, gender continues to frame understandings of the migraine. If migraine, even in its neurobiological context, is forever linked to the idea of the hysterical female, a focus on solutions to the suffering endured by those with migraine is hardly likely to be prioritized. Kempner concludes by suggesting that reframing the stories about people with headache disorders should be a high priority. Once this has been achieved and the migraine inches into the rational and the worthy, the way might become clearer. Joanna Kempner has written an evocative monograph about the gendered politics of the migraine. This book will make a very interesting adjunct to courses on sociology of health and illness, but it also can serve as an important heuristic as it assists practitioners and sufferers to consider the social and political framing of common disorders.