Full Citation

Title: Restoring Culture and Capital to Cultural Capital: Origin–Destination Cultural Distance and Immigrant Earnings in the United States

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2022

ISBN:

ISSN:

DOI:

NSFID:

PMCID:

PMID:

Abstract: An extensive sociological literature maintains that cultural capital plays a pivotal role in perpetuating social inequalities. However, empirical tests of cultural capital theory focus on how culture influences educational outcomes, not earnings, and they mainly look for cultural differences across social classes within societies. We propose a direct test of economic returns to cultural capital by capitalizing instead on differences in national cultures across countries. Using the American Community Survey and the National Survey of College Graduates, we analyze the relationship between immigrants’ lack of U.S.-specific cultural capital, proxied by cultural distance between the origin country and the U.S., and their earnings. Findings consistently indicate that origin–U.S. cultural distance is linked to immigrants’ lower earnings after controlling for various other factors, supporting cultural capital theory. The earnings penalties vary systematically across cultural distances, and such systematic variations are more pronounced for immigrants with at least a bachelor’s degree, those who arrive in adulthood, and with foreign highest degrees. Moreover, county-level analysis reveals more sizeable cultural distance penalties in more competitive and unequal labor markets, highlighting how subnational receiving contexts shape disparities in immigrants’ economic incorporation at their destinations.

Url: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/m5c8e/download

User Submitted?: No

Authors: He, Qian; Gerber, Theodore P.; Xie, Yu

Publisher: Princeton University

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Education, Migration and Immigration

Countries: