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Employment rates fell dramatically between March and April 2020 as the initial shock of the COVID-19 pandemic reverberated through the US labor market. This paper uses data from the CPS Basic Monthly Files to document that the employment decline was particularly severe for immigrants. Historically, immigrant men are more likely to work than native men. The pandemic-related labor market shock eliminated the immigrant employment advantage. After this initial precipitous drop, however, the employment recovery through June 2021 was much stronger for immigrants, and particularly for undocumented immigrants. The steep drop in immigrant employment at the start of the pandemic occurred partly because immigrants were less likely to work in jobs that could be performed remotely and suffered disproportionate employment losses as only workers with remotable skills were able to continue working from home. The stronger employment recovery of undocumented immigrants, relative to that experienced by natives or legal immigrants, is mostly explained by the fact that undocumented workers were not eligible for the generous unemployment insurance (UI) benefits offered to workers during the pandemic.

Self‐employment has been stressed as a way for immigrants to enter and improve their situation in the labour market. However, research shows that some people who become self‐employed revert to wage employment or unemployment. The purpose of the paper is to study the labour market consequences of temporary self‐employment on paid employment among immigrants.

The paper uses micro‐econometric methods to estimate the effect of self‐employment, relative to continued wage employment, on earnings and employment opportunities in 2006. The paper also identifies the type of wage earner that temporarily enters self‐employment.

The paper finds that, relative to continued wage employment, self‐employment, with few exceptions, does not improve outcomes in the wage sector of immigrants and may in fact be associated with lower earnings and difficulties in returning to paid employment.

The results indicate that encouraging immigrant wage earners to become self‐employed should be done with care, since self‐employment does not necessarily improve subsequent labour market outcomes.

This study will be valuable to those who are interested in the economic consequences of immigrant self‐employment.

Social scientists often speculate that both acculturation and socioeconomic status are factors that may explain differences in the body weight between Mexican Americans and whites and between Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants, yet prior research has not explicitly theorized and tested the pathways that lead both of these upstream factors to contribute to ethnic/nativity disparities in weight. We make this contribution to the literature by developing a conceptual model drawing from Glass and McAtee’s (2006) risk regulation framework. We test this model by analyzing data from the 1999–2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Our conceptual model treats acculturation and socioeconomic status as risk regulators, or social factors that place individuals in positions where they are at risk for health risk behaviors that negatively influence health outcomes. We specifically argue that acculturation and low socioeconomic status contribute to less healthy diets, lower physical activity, and chronic stress, which then increases the risk of weight gain. We further contend that pathways from ethnicity/nativity and through acculturation and socioeconomic status likely explain disparities in weight gain between Mexican Americans and whites and between Mexican immigrants and whites. Study results largely support our conceptual model and have implications for thinking about solutions for reducing ethnic/nativity disparities in weight.

The spread of the Internet has transformed the dating landscape. Given the increasing popularity of online dating and rising immigration to Canada, this study takes an intersectional lens to examine nativity and gender differentials in heterosexual online dating.

In 2018, a random-digit-dial telephone survey was conducted in Canada. Logistic regression models were used to analyze original data from this survey (N = 1,373).

Results show that immigrants are more likely than native-born people to have used online dating in Canada, possibly because international relocation makes it more difficult for immigrants to meet romantic partners in other ways. In online-to-offline transitions, both native-born and immigrant online daters follow gendered scripts where men ask women out for a first date. Finally, immigrant men, who likely have disadvantaged positions in offline dating markets, also experience the least success in finding a long-term partner online.

Extending search theory of relationship formation to online dating, this study advances the understanding of change and continuity in gendered rituals and mate-selection processes in the digital and globalization era. Integrating search theory and intersectionality theory, this study highlights the efficiency of using the Internet to search for romantic partners and the socially constructed hierarchy of desirability as interrelated mechanisms that produce divergent online dating outcomes across social groups. Internet dating, instead of acting as an agent of social change, may reproduce normative dating practices and existing hierarchies of desirability.

Upon arrival in the host country, immigrants undergo a fundamental identity crisis. Their ethnic identity being questioned, they can be classified into four states – assimilation, integration, separation, and marginalization. This is suggested by the ethnosizer, a newly established measure to parameterize a person's ethnic identity, using individual information on language, culture, societal interaction, history of migration, and ethnic self-identification. In what state individuals end up varies among immigrants even from the same country. Moreover, the quest for ethnic identity affects women and men differentially. This paper contends that ethnic identity can significantly affect the attachment to and performance of immigrants in the host country labor market, beyond human capital and ethnic origin characteristics. Empirical estimates for immigrants in Germany show that ethnic identity is important for the decision to work and significantly and differentially affects the labor force participation of men and women. Women who exhibit the integrated identity are more likely to work than women who are German assimilated; this does not hold for men. However, once we control for selection in the labor market and a slew of individual and labor market characteristics, ethnic identity does not significantly affect the earnings of men or women immigrant workers.

This paper studies the entrepreneurial undertaking and economic success of immigrants and natives in Germany, namely the West Germans, the East Germans, the guestworkers, and other immigrants.

The paper studies factors that affect the sorting of individuals into self‐employment and investigate whether the self‐employed fare better than the paid‐employed, and whether self‐employed immigrants fare better than Germans. Employing data from the German Socioeconomic Panel both the probability to choose self‐employment through a probit and the selection adjusted earnings are estimated.

The paper finds that the probability of self‐employment increases significantly with age for all ethnicity groups. More education and a self‐employed father propel self‐employment choices for West Germans only. Immigrants are rather pushed into self‐employment to avoid unemployment; however, they are able to traverse the socioeconomic gap through self‐employment. Except for the East Germans, the self‐employed earn more than their salaried counterparts, and immigrants fare the best, having the highest earnings of all groups. For immigrants, entrepreneurship maybe a way of “making” it in the new country. While self‐employment is a lucrative choice for immigrants, their rates remain low.

This study produces new empirical evidence on the importance of the self‐employment sector in Germany, where individuals fare well and where immigrants can achieve earnings over‐assimilation compared to natives and higher occupational prestige.

Age at migration is commonly utilized as a proxy measure for assimilation in health behavior research. We reconsider this approach by examining the role of continued connection with places of origin on alcohol use, an important marker of health behavior and overall population health. Cross-border connections may buffer the association between earlier age at migration and alcohol use by providing an alternative channel of influence for behavioral norms. Alternatively, a stress and coping perspective on cross-border ties suggests potentially countervailing adverse impacts of these connections on alcohol use. We used data from the 2002/2003 National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS) (n = 1,641/1,630 Asian and Latino origin respondents, respectively). We first estimated the association between age at migration (child/adolescent versus adult migrant) and any past-year alcohol use. We subsequently tested the interaction between age at migration and two measures of cross-border connections. All models were stratified by region of origin and gender. For Latin American-origin women, cross-border ties were associated with increased risk of past-year alcohol use among those who migrated early in life. In contrast, Asian-origin men and women who migrated as adults and had contact with family and friends abroad had the lowest predicted probabilities of past-year alcohol use. The results among Asians support the idea that cross-border ties may be alternative influences on health behavior outcomes, particularly for adult migrants. Overall, we find qualified support for both transnational and assimilationist perspectives on alcohol use behaviors among US immigrants – as well as the interaction between these two frameworks. The joint influences of cross-border ties and age at migration were observed primarily for immigrant women, and not always in expected directions. We nevertheless urge future research to consider both US and country of origin influences on a wider range of health and health behavior outcomes for immigrants, as well as the potential intersection between US and cross-border connections.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the attitudes, knowledge and beliefs regarding female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) of six groups of immigrant men from countries where FGM/C is practiced and to identify their role in the decision-making process of circumcising their daughters.

The study took the form of qualitative action research with seven focus groups of 50 men coming from Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Benin, Egypt and Nigeria, living in Florence, Italy.

Different conceptions, cultures and attitudes about FGM/C exist among men coming from different countries, but also within the same community. The participants expressed positions both in favor and against the maintenance of the practice. There were opposite beliefs about the religious motivations invoked.

The study is qualitative and the non-probability sample and the small number of participants are important limitations.

The study improves current knowledge on men’s role and attitude in FGM/C and gives important information for the prevention of future activities that could include both men and women of the community.

The need to involve men in preventive actions against FGM/C has been underlined by the World Health Organization. The involvement of men and leaders of the communities could facilitate cultural changes toward the abandoning of these practices. FGM/C is often considered as a phenomenon concerning only women, who are frequently left alone to face the decision of whether to abandon the ritual.

The great advantage of conducting such a study in a country of migration is the presence of different communities, with different cultural views, in the same area.

This chapter discusses how gender scholarship has transformed the study of immigration in the United States since the 1970s.

This discussion is based on a synthesized review of immigration studies and their connections to gender scholarship in different historical contexts.

Over the past four decades, gender scholarship has significantly shaped the theories, methodologies, and core concerns in immigration studies in the United States. Before the 1970s, immigration research focused on men. Studies of immigrant women began in the 1980s, which not only challenged previous gender-blind perspectives but also highlighted women’s unique experiences. From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, the study of gender and immigration focused on immigrant women’s vulnerabilities in the global economy and enhancing women’s status at home through employment in the host society. Since the 1990s, more diverse topics have emerged to involve discussion on globalization and transnationalism. These gendering trends in immigration studies have not taken place in an intellectual vacuum. Rather, they have been influenced by developments in gender scholarship within different historical contexts.

To enrich gender-focused and feminism-informed research in immigration studies, scholars will have to build connections across subareas and engage in dialogues with each other. More immigrant groups must also be studied to reflect the extremely diverse make-up of current immigrants in the United States. Intersectional analyses are also needed to avoid homogenizing studied groups. Finally, mainstream immigration research must begin to perceive gender as an essential analytical framework.

This research aims to explore how female immigrants use consumption to challenge and support their husband's position within the context of their patriarchal bargain.

The sample group (n = 20) consisted of ten first-generation Nigerian immigrant married couples living in Britain, who were interviewed together, with the married female then re-interviewed separately.

This paper demonstrates how women transition from being a wife in a consanguine family in Nigeria, which they describe as patriarchal, to becoming one within a nuclear family in the UK, a society to which they attribute gender equality. Nigerian immigrant women alter their ways of thinking and consuming, with implications to their agency and empowerment. In particular, consumption choices demonstrated the limits of these women’s willingness to challenge their patriarchal bargain and instead often colluded with their husbands to maintain his position as the head of the family.

Immigrant women should not be seen as passive receptors of their male partner’s wishes or demands, but instead active participators in purchasing and consumption decisions. Although marketing encourages direct targeting of customers, this approach raises a number of ethical issues for female African immigrants.

Previous research on the consumption behaviour of immigrants is limited in scope and tends to focus on male immigrants, with female immigrants either invisible or stereotyped. Compounding this problem are disciplinary, geographical and linguistic barriers that hinder social scientists' research into the consumption of female migration. This paper works to address these omissions.