Marta Tienda

Educational Aspirations of Minority Youth

Using the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), we analyze how educational aspirations are formed and maintained from eighth to twelfth grades among a single cohort of youth. Guided by research in the status-attainment literature, which focuses on how aspirations are shaped, and the blocked-opportunities framework, which considers the structural obstacles that bound or level aspirations, we find that the relative shares of minority youth who have high educational aspirations are high from eighth to twelfth grades. However, ethnic groups differ in the extent to which high educational aspirations are maintained such that black and Hispanic youth have less stable aspirations. Our results suggest that family socioeconomic status (SES) not only contributes to ambitious aspirations in eighth grade but, more important, to the maintenance of high aspirations throughout the high school years. Because black and Hispanic students are less likely to maintain their high aspirations throughout high school, owing to their lower family SES background, we argue that their early aspirations are less concrete than those of white and especially Asian students. Focus-group discussions with adolescents support quantitative findings that, compared to whites and Asians, black and Hispanic youth are relatively uninformed about college, thus dampening their odds of reaching their educational goals.

Determinants of Extended Household Structure: Cultural Pattern or Economic Need?'

This research examines th relationship between household composition and sources of household income among Hispanics, blacks, and non-Hispanic whites. Specifically, we investigate the extent to which extended living arrangements help buffer the effect of labor market disadvantages faced by minority household heads. Results of logit and regression analyses indicate that differences in the prevalence of extented family households reflect primarily group-specific differences in the propensity to extend, but that this demographic mechanism may also serve as a compensatory strategy for supplementing the temporarily or chronically low earnings of minority household heads. In black and Hispanic households, nonnuclear members contribute significantly to total household income, although their relative contributions are approximately similar for poor and nonpoor households. Nonnuclear members in non-Hispanic white households appear not to participate significantly in the generation of household income.

Hispanics and the Future of America

Hispanics and the Future of America presents details of the complex story of a population that varies in many dimensions, including national origin, immigration status, and generation. The papers in this volume draw on a wide variety of data sources to describe the contours of this population, from the perspectives of history, demography, geography, education, family, employment, economic well-being, health, and political engagement. They provide a rich source of information for researchers, policy makers, and others who want to better understand the fast-growing and diverse population that we call a /Hispanic.a The current period is a critical one for getting a better understanding of how Hispanics are being shaped by the U.S. experience. This will, in turn, affect the United States and the contours of the Hispanic future remain uncertain. The uncertainties include such issues as whether Hispanics, especially immigrants, improve their educational attainment and fluency in English and thereby improve their economic position; whether growing numbers of foreign-born Hispanics become citizens and achieve empowerment at the ballot box and through elected office; whether impending health problems are successfully averted; and whether Hispanicsa (TM) geographic dispersal accelerates their spatial and social integration. The papers in this volume provide invaluable information to explore these issues.

Minority Concentration and Earnings Inequality: Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians Compared

This paper investigates the influence of the racial and ethnic composition of labor markets on earnings inequality among black, Hispanic, Asian, and white men to determine whether the influence on earnings of minority labor-market concentration differs by educational level. Consistent with other studies, the results, based on the 1980 5% Public Use Microdata Sample, show that Hispanic and nonwhite workers, compared with their white counterparts, lost earnings from residence and work in labor markets with a large share of monority residents and that this relationship was especially pronounced for black men. Further refinement of these results reveals additional differentation by educational groups: the earnings losses of black, Hispanic, and Asian men associated with residence in areas of high minority concentration are greatest among workers with college education and lowest among those who have not completed high school. That college-educated whites gained most from minority concentration emphasizes how both ascribed (race) and achieved (education) identifiers must coincide to generate white earnings advantages. Considered by themselves, neither racial nor educational divisions explain fully how earnings disparties are accentuated by the ethnic composition of labor markets.

Assessing the “Mismatch” Hypothesis: Differences in College Graduation Rates by Institutional Selectivity

This article evaluates the “mismatch” hypothesis, advocated by opponents of affirmative action, which predicts lower graduation rates for minority students who attend selective postsecondary institutions than for those who attend colleges and universities where their academic credentials are better matched to the institutional average. Using two nationally representative longitudinal surveys and a unique survey of students who were enrolled at selective and highly selective institutions, the authors tested the mismatch hypothesis by implementing a robust methodology that jointly considered enrollment in and graduation from selective institutions as interrelated outcomes. The findings do not support the “mismatch” hypothesis for black and Hispanic (as well as white and Asian) students who attended college during 1980s and early 1990s.

Immigrants' pathways to business ownership : A comparative ethnic perspective

This paper provides a comparative perspective of pathways to entrepreneurship among Hispanic (mostly Mexican), Korean, non-Hispanic white, and Middle-Eastern/South-Asian entrepreneurs to identify common and unique circumstances conducive to business ownership. A stratified random sample business survey conducted in an immigrant neighborhood in Chicago is analyzed, to determine whether employment in a co-ethnic firm and informal self-employment serve as a stepladder to business ownership. The blocked mobility hypothesis is examined by considering self-reports about reasons for becoming self-employed. Results show that the informal economy is a common pathway to steady self-employment for Hispanics, whereas entry through employment in a co-ethnic firm was more common among Koreans than immigrants from Mexico, the Middle East, and South Asia. Koreans see business ownership as a way to overcome blocked mobility, but virtually all desire their offspring to acquire “good jobs” in the open labor market. For Hispanics, business ownership is not solely an instrument for overcoming discrimination, but rather a strategy for intergenerational mobility.

Household structure and labor force participation of black, hispanic, and white mothers

This paper investigates whether the inclusion of nonnuclear adults in a household facilitates the labor force participation of single and married mothers. Results based on a sample of extended and nuclear households show that the extension mechanism facilitates the labor market entry of married mothers, but not of single mothers. Interactions between extended structure, ethnicity, and poverty, however, suggest a complex relationship. For extended family households, the gender and employment characteristics of nonnuclear adults affected the labor force participation of single mothers, but the number of nonnuclear members was inversely associated with the market activity of married mothers. Policy implications are discussed in the final section.

The structuring of Hispanic ethnicity: Historical and contemporary perspectives*

(1985). The structuring of Hispanic ethnicity: Historical and contemporary perspectives. Ethnic and Racial Studies: Vol. 8, Ethnicity and Race in the U.S.A: Toward the Twenty-First Century, pp. 49-74.

Industrial Restructuring, Gender Segregation, and Sex Differences in Earnings

Mens and womens 1979 earnings are examined within a framework of the structural transformation of employment and the gender composition of jobs during the 1970s. Tests for interaction between structural change and gender composition reveal that industrial restructuring translates into different job opportunities for men and women, which, in turn, differentiate their economic rewards. Both men and women benefited from the effects of industrial shifts and intraindustry occupational restructuring, but men benefited more from the entry of women into traditionally male-dominated occupations than did woman. Apparently the industrial transformation of employment accompanies a process which redefines gender boundaries so that job sex segregation persists as a feature of the employment structure.

GENDER, MIGRATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE

This paper provides a critical review of existing studies about how migration alters womens position in the course of social change. Two major goals are accomplished. First, the conceptual and methodological issues that bear on the assessment of changing gender relations are distilled from the existing literature. Second, for heuristic purposes we delineate three alternative outcomes for migrant women using the distribution-redistribution analytical framework, although we acknowledge the difficulty of distinguishing among them empirically. Finally, we provide a selective review of case studies illustrating alternative outcomes for migrant women in Africa and Latin America. The concluding discussion summarises the major findings in an attempt to distinguish issues that cross-cut social settings from those which are country-specific.