1. SOL Downward Mobility and Psychological Well-Being
Project
SOL
Florida International University
Downward Mobility and Psychological Well-Being
in Immigrant Parents
Eugenia I. Perez-Cerini, Mary J. Levitt, & Jerome Levitt
Florida International University, Miami-Dade County Public Schools
Students from
Other
Lands
ABSTRACT
Immigration often leads to downward mobility, as many immigrants are unable to find work in their former fields of employment. The focus of this study is on diminished employment status as a predictor of adjustment for parents of school-age children in the first year following migration to the United States. As hypothesized, loss of job status was associated significantly with diminished affect, lower life satisfaction, and greater dissatisfaction with migration, independent of economic difficulty.
INTRODUCTION
Immigration has steadily increased in the last decades, and research is needed to address the effects of this life changing transition on individuals’ well being. Immigration often leads to downward mobility, as many immigrants are unable to find work, or lack the proper credentials to obtain work, in their former fields of employment. Psychosocial well-being has been found to be lower for physicians migrating to Israel if they are unable to work in their profession (Bernstein, 2000). Generally, however, there is almost no research on the psychological effects of immigrants’ downward mobility.
Almost half of all immigrants, as reported by the 2000 US Census Bureau, are of parenting age (25-44). The focus of this study is on diminished employment status as a predictor of adjustment for parents of school-age children in the first year following migration to the United States. We hypothesized that loss of job status would be associated with lower life satisfaction, lower affect, and greater dissatisfaction with migration, independent of the economic circumstances of the individual. We also assessed whether these effects varied by participants’ gender or country of origin.
METHOD
Sample and Procedure
The present analyses include 334 parents of school-age children from Argentina, Cuba, Colombia, Haiti, Jamaica and other English speaking Caribbean countries, who had been living in the US for less than a year. Parent surveys, in the parent’s home language, were given to students to take home. Surveys were returned by mail. Parents who did not return surveys were contacted by phone, and, in some cases, interviewed by phone.
Participants were selected randomly from a centralized database of newly registered students from the targeted countries. Considerations guiding the selection of groups were (a) the groups had both common and diverse characteristics, allowing for meaningful comparisons of their post-migration experiences, (b) there were large influxes of immigrants from these groups at the time of selection, and (c) almost no data were available regarding the differing experiences of South American and Caribbean immigrants.
Measures
Change in job status: difference between prior and current employment level on a measure of job status used by Portes and Rumbaut (2001).
Economic difficulty: item “How often you have problems paying for things the family really needs, like food, clothing, and rent”, with answers ranging from “never” to “almost always”.
Affect: Bradburn (1969) Affect Balance Scale.
Life satisfaction and satisfaction migrating to
U. S. items: “In general, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days” and “How satisfied are you about coming to the UnitedStates to live”. Scales ranged from “very dissatisfied” to “very satisfied”.
RESULTS & DISCUSSION
On average, participants experienced significant loss of job status, t (333) = 17.14, p < Women (M = 5.385, SD = 5.183) lost more ground than men (M = 3.684, SD = 5.153), although both experienced significant downward change. By country, as seen in Figure 1, Colombians lost the most status and English-speaking Caribbean participants the least, and of all the groups in the study, the Haitian group experienced the most economic hardship (M = 2.950, SD = 1.356).
A series of regression analyses were conducted with the affect and satisfaction measures as the criteria. Predictors were participant sex, country of origin (dummy-coded), job status change, and economic difficulty. The results of these analyses are shown in Table 1. Interaction terms representing interactions of job status change by sex and ethnicity were included last in the regressions.
As hypothesized, loss of job status was associated significantly with diminished affect, lower life satisfaction, and greater dissatisfaction with migration, independent of economic difficulty . These results were largely consistent by gender and country of origin. However, an interaction by sex indicated that job status loss was linked more significantly to diminished affect for men than for women.
Loss of job status is likely to be of particular significance in many immigrant cultures where the head of household is usually is usually the father, whose central role as family provider can be negatively impacted, leading to feelings of depression. In general, our results indicate that job changes accompanying migration have a significant impact on the psychological well-being of immigrant parents.
REFERENCES
Bernstein, J. H. (2000). The professional self-evaluation of immigrant physicians from the former Soviet Union in Israel. Journal of Immigrant Health, 2,
Bradburn, N. (1969). The structure of psychological well-being. Chicago: Aldine.
Portes, A., & Rumbaut, R. (2001). Legacies: The story of the immigrant second generation. Berkeley and New York: University of California Press and Russell Sage Foundation.
Table 1
Effects of Job Status Change and Economic Hardship on Adjustment Measures
Life Affect Migration Satisfaction Satisfaction
Predictors β r β r β r2
Argentinean
Colombian
Cuban
Haitian
Parent sex
Job Status Change * † **
Economic Hardship * *
Interactions
Parent Sex x Job Change *
Haitian x Job Change
Note. β = Standardized beta weight. Only significant interactions are reported.
*p < **p < ***p < † p < .06.
Presented at the 2005 meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington, D. C. This research was funded by a grant from the Spencer Foundation. The data presented, the statements made, and the views expressed are solely the responsibility of the authors.
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