Within-group Income Inequality among Asian American Families
Issue Date
2019-05-31Author
Zhang, Yurong
Publisher
University of Kansas
Format
55 pages
Type
Thesis
Degree Level
M.A.
Discipline
Sociology
Rights
Copyright held by the author.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Asian Americans have long been portrayed as a “model minority” for their relatively high socioeconomic standings in contemporary America. However, this characterization oversimplifies the economic circumstances of Asian Americans, as they also show the highest within-group inequality among all racial and ethnic groups. Asian Americans’ high within-group inequality highlights the convergence of class inequality, racial disparity, as well as the diversity of their immigration status. Focusing on the reasons that account for Asian American within-group inequality, this thesis utilizes both ordinary least square (OLS) regression and conditional quantile regression to uncover the difference in within-group inequalities between non-Hispanic white families and Asian American families. The results show that Asian American families indeed have a 24% higher income inequality (as measured by the gap between the ninetieth percentile and the tenth percentile) than whites. However, the higher income inequality is reduced to as low as 6.2% after controlling for demographic characteristics, human capital variables, immigration status, and family composition variables. As Asian American demographic characteristics and family composition have a counteracting effect on their income inequality, human capital combined with immigration status thus explains over 75% of their higher income inequality.
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- Sociology Dissertations and Theses [155]
- Theses [3944]
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