Do second-generation Asian Americans face a systematic disadvantage in occupational attainment? Comment on Tran, Lee and Huang

ABSTRACT

We critically review and discuss several methodological problems with their analysis. Their definition of the occupational hierarchy is unclear, and their inadequate statistical models exacerbate the vagueness of their results. They ignore gender interactions, and the age range of their target population seems too narrow for their research concerns. Their interpretation of their own statistical findings on occupational attainment is fundamentally flawed although they refuse to acknowledge it. Their reported results cannot be replicated based on the information that they are willing to reveal about their analysis which suggests additional, undisclosed errors. In our reanalysis of their data using more appropriate methods, we find that rather than being systematically disadvantaged, the occupational attainment of most second-generation Asian Americans has either achieved parity with whites or has exceeded them after controlling for age, educational level, and survey year.

KEYWORDS:

• Asian Americans
• occupational attainment
• glass ceiling
• racial inequality
• second-generation
• racial discrimination

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Our citations to TLH are based on the page numbers in the open-access version that is available at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2019.1579920.

2 We asked two senior sociologist colleagues who are specialized in Asian Americans to read TLH. Both of them independently reached our same conclusion that TLH misinterpret their multivariate results by not adequately distinguishing them from bivariate associations.

3 Sakamoto, Kim and Tamborini's (2019) bivariate analysis reports Asians being more likely to be in higher-level occupations than whites, but that differential is likely to have been even greater had the sample been limited to second-generation Asian Americans.

4 We thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing this issue to our attention.

5 Another alternative approach would be to use an ordered logistic regression model if the occupational hierarchy is more clearly defined (i.e., ordered) by the categories and if the proportionality constraint inherent in that model is acceptable.

6 Refusing to provide us with their computer program might be inconsistent with Ethical Standard 13.04 of the Code of Ethics of the American Sociological Association which states that

Sociologists also disclose underlying assumptions, theories, methods, measures, and research designs that might bear upon findings and interpretations of their work … .Consistent with the spirit of full disclosure of methods and analyses, once findings are publicly disseminated, sociologists permit their open assessment and verification by other responsible researchers … .

A Stata computer program replicating all of our reported statistical results are available from the authors upon request.

7 A closely related approach is used by Sakamoto, Kim, and Tamborini (2019). Although a long tradition in sociology ranks occupations by some combination of both average education and average income (Hauser and Warren 1997), this approach is likely outdated in the twenty-first century due to rising “over-education” within occupations (Sakamoto, Kim, and Tamborini 2019; Sakamoto and Wang 2019).

8 The one occupation that we delete from our analysis (as is commonly done) is active service military personnel who are a miniscule proportion of the CPS data due to its sampling frame which omits persons living on military bases.

9 Although TLH apparently only used mother's place of birth to ascertain second-generation Asian Americans, we incorporated information on both mother's and father's place of birth.

10 More exactly, $(e^b-1)$ refers to a proportionate change in dollars for a unit change in the independent variable associated with the coefficient b, net of the effects of the other control variables in the model.

11 As noted by an anonymous reviewer in regard to TLH, “Indeed it is surprising that such an inexpert analysis got past the original reviewers”. Both of the senior authors of TLH are members of the editorial board of Ethnic and Racial Studies.