Assimilation beyond Earnings: An Analysis of Career Aspirations and Job Satisfaction for two cohorts of Mexican Immigrants in the United States
Rao, Nidhi S.
2020
- This thesis examines intergenerational changes in occupationalsatisfaction levels and career priorities for Mexican migrants living in SanAntonio and Los Angeles in 1965 and 1998, using data from the MexicanAmerican Study Project (MASP). This idea originates from contemporaryliterature that aims to shift to migrant’s subjective understandings of “success” asa metric for assimilation. It uses an ... read moreordinary least squares regression to find that amigrant’s education level, English fluency, age and being from San Antonio had apositive impact on the respondent’s occupational satisfaction levels. Then, usingmultinomial logit models, I evaluate different factors that influence career prioritychoices for respondents in the MASP. The first multinomial logit model uses“Interest in Work” as its base case and the second multinomial logit model isrelative to “financial aspects”. In this analysis, generally, we find that an increasein human capital (education and language fluency) made respondents prioritizecareer aspects higher on more “self-actualized” priorities on the Maslow’sHierarchy of Needs (i.e interest in work, social prestige) over more fundamentalneeds (i.e financial aspects and job security). The multinomial logit models alsoreveal that a respondent’s location and gender also played a significant role inhow respondents prioritized career aspects. Intergenerationally, career prioritiesand occupational satisfaction levels do not change substantively, with theexception that 2nd generation respondents value an “interest in work” more thantheir parents and “financial aspects” less than their parents. This study raisesimportant questions about the ways we measure intergenerational mobility formigrants in the United States and offers an analysis of relatively understudiedeconomic variables of career success. Advisor: Anna Hardman.read less
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