This thesis includes two essays on Chinese mainland immigrants and their offspring in Hong Kong, using a series of censuses and by-censuses data from 1991 to 2006 and Social Inequality and Social Mobility Survey data from 2006. The first essay examines the assimilation of mainland immigrants in the labor market in Hong Kong, focusing on employment, occupational and earnings attainment in comparison to natives. Particular attention is paid to the assimilation of the immigrants over time, and the effects of changes to the cohort quality, resulting primarily from the shift in immigration policy after Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997. Results of my estimations show that newly arrived Chinese immigrants had a lower employment rate, and were trapped in elementary occupations even if they h...[ Read more ]

This thesis includes two essays on Chinese mainland immigrants and their offspring in Hong Kong, using a series of censuses and by-censuses data from 1991 to 2006 and Social Inequality and Social Mobility Survey data from 2006. The first essay examines the assimilation of mainland immigrants in the labor market in Hong Kong, focusing on employment, occupational and earnings attainment in comparison to natives. Particular attention is paid to the assimilation of the immigrants over time, and the effects of changes to the cohort quality, resulting primarily from the shift in immigration policy after Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997. Results of my estimations show that newly arrived Chinese immigrants had a lower employment rate, and were trapped in elementary occupations even if they had jobs, and earned much less than the natives. As immigrants stayed longer, the gap tended to decrease. However, most immigrants were not able to reach parity to the natives in terms of earnings throughout their working lives. The above pattern differs by gender. No evidence suggests significant changes in the quality of immigrant cohorts after Hong Kong’s reunification with China in 1997.

Although Chinese immigrants are in disadvantaged positions in Hong Kong, the second essay shows that children of Chinese immigrants surpass children of natives in educational, occupational, and earnings attainment. Also, the gap between mainland immigrants’ offspring and natives’ children in tertiary school enrollment decreases as their parental education or parental occupation increases. These results not only confirm the optimism hypothesis of a second immigrant generation, but also provide an alternative explanation for the success of the children of immigrants. Given a lack of cultural and ethnic differentials, it is not a matter of the cultural valuation of education or success-oriented cultural values, but the motivation of upward mobility resulting from parental immigrant status, especially from low socioeconomic status that leads to the success of the children of mainland immigrants in Hong Kong.