Generational Differences in Educational Attainment among Asian Americans

Past research has focused on generational differences in school performance among Asian American students. Do generational differences in educational attainment crystallize in adulthood among Asian Americans? Is there any gender difference in the trajectory of educational attainment across generations? This paper addresses these two questions using the cumulative file of the 1994-1999 Current Population Surveys. The multivariate results reveal complex trajectories. For adult Asians as a whole, holding relevant factors constant, the level of educational attainment increases from the first generation to the second generation but declines in the third generation. Moreover, there is a sharp gender difference in trajectory. For Asian women, the same nonlinear pattern as observed in the total sample emerges. For Asian men, the level of educational attainment decreases over generations. These results lend support to the immigrant aspiration hypothesis and the receptive environment hypothesis but challenges the classic assimilation theory. Changes in relative gender equality in status and education opportunity between home and host countries may help explain the gender differences in the path of educational mobility across generations. The result also points to the importance of gender in the study of educational attainment across generations.