The Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank in New York, recently released its first annual Index of Immigrant Assimilation. The report looks at immigrants of various nationalities, including Indians, and examines the extent to which they assimilate along economic, civil and cultural lines.
An article in The Washington Post explains the methodology of the study:
[It] used census and other data to devise an assimilation index to measure the degree of similarity between the United States' foreign-born and native-born populations. These included civic factors, such as rates of U.S. citizenship and service in the military; economic factors, such as earnings and rates of homeownership; and cultural factors, such as English ability and degree of intermarriage with U.S. citizens. The higher the number on a 100-point index, the more an immigrant resembled a U.S. citizen.
In general, the longer an immigrant lives in the United States, the more characteristics of native citizens he or she tends to take on, said Jacob L. Vigdor, a professor at Duke University and author of the study. During periods of intense immigration, such as from 1870 to 1920, or during the immigration wave that began in the 1970s, new arrivals tend to drag down the average assimilation index of the foreign-born population as a whole.
Economically, as you might have guessed, Indians had a high rate of economic assimilation. Which is to say that within a given number of years they quickly attained the same income levels as native-born Americans. See figure 4 to the right for a comparison of the different nationalities.
However, the composite index, which combines economic with cultural and civil indexes, shows that overall, Indians are much less likely to assimilate. Which is to say that while they earn money quickly, they're much less likely to, say, marry US citizens (cultural) or join the military (civic). Look at Figure 3, lower down to see how Indians
compare to others.
The author of the study noted how Indians and Chinese have high levels of economic assimilation but were lower on the cultural index:
"Immigrants born in the Philippines and the Dominican Republic also show relatively high levels of cultural assimilation. At the other end of the spectrum, immigrants born in China and India show the greatest degree of cultural distinction from the native-born. It is interesting to note that both these groups show average or above-average levels of economic assimilation, a first clue that cultural assimilation is not a prerequisite for economic assimilation. The least economically assimilated large group, the Mexican-born, posts cultural assimilation levels nearly identical to those of Vietnamese immigrants, who are nearly indistinguishable from the native-born along economic lines."
More from the Washington Post:
The report found, however, that the speed with which new arrivals take on native-born traits has increased since the 1990s. As a result, even though the foreign population doubled during that period, the newcomers did not drive down the overall assimilation index of the foreign-born population. Instead, it held relatively steady from 1990 to 2006.
"This is something unprecedented in U.S. history," Vigdor said. "It shows that the nation's capacity to assimilate new immigrants is strong."
A possible explanation, Vigdor said, was that the economic expansion of the 1990s created more job opportunities at all levels, speeding the economic integration of immigrants. It could also be that because today's immigrants begin at such a low starting point, "it's easier to make progress to the next level up" of integration than it would be if the immigrant had to improve on an already high level of integration.
To see the cultural and civic indexes, read the Washington Post article or see the original study at the Manhattan Institute's website.
