Date of Award

Spring 2005

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Sociology & Criminal Justice

Program/Concentration

Applied Sociology

Committee Director

Garland White

Committee Member

Victoria Time

Committee Member

William Agyei

Call Number for Print

Special Collections LD4331.S62 B47 2005

Abstract

Using data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) of the 2000 U.S. census, the socioeconomic attainments of African immigrants was compared to African Americans in the United States. This comparison was made within the context of assimilation perspective, human capital perspective, and the family investment model. Consistent with previous research findings, the current study found that African immigrants have higher educational attainments than African-Americans in the United States. However, when breaking down the African group by country of birth, African-Americans were found to have higher educational attainments than a few African countries. Generally, the results reveal that African immigrants have higher socioeconomic attainments than African-Americans in the United States. While place of birth was found to have a statistically significant relationship to socioeconomic attainment, within this study race was the most powerful predictor of socioeconomic attainments within these groups. This finding suggests that assimilation and human capital perspectives do not adequately address this observed difference in the socioeconomic attainments of white Africans as compared to black Africans and African Americans.

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DOI

10.25777/jpm8-q781

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