Eckstein Edits Special Issue of Journal of the Social Sciences
Susan Eckstein, Professor of International Relations and Sociology at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, was the guest editor of a recent special issue of the Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences. Eckstein also co-authored an article in the issue on immigrant niches and immigrant networks in the United States labor market.
The article, which Eckstein co-authored with Giovanni Peri, was published in the January 2018 issue of the Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences.
From the text of the article:
Immigrants come to the United States to work and to improve their earnings and material living conditions, and in doing so, they often drive economic growth and local revitalization. Their labor market involvement may either supplement or displace employment opportunities for native-born populations, and immigrant groups can vary significantly in the economic success they achieve in this country. The consensus among economists who assess the macro effects of economic activity and among sociologists who address the impact of noneconomic forces on economic activity is that, on balance, the U.S. national economy—as well as immigrants themselves—benefit from their labor market contributions.
The essays in this issue deepen our understanding of different labor market experiences of immigrant groups by drawing on the expertise and insight not only of economists and sociologists but also of demographers, geographers, and anthropologists who value interdisciplinary scholarship. Drawing on somewhat different but overlapping frames and methods of analyses, these essays enhance our underImmigrant Niches and Immigrant Networks in the U.S. Labor Market Susan Eckstein and Giovanni Peri I mmigrant N ich es a n d Ne twork s standing of the labor market experiences of new immigrants and of the opportunities and constraints they face in the economic niches in which they obtain work. The qualitative scholars contribute insight into the distinctive features and dynamics of different occupational niches that quantitative analyses fail to capture. At the same time, quantitative scholars elucidate the broad trends and regularities in labor market activity that are missed by case studies. Few quantitative sociologists talk of “niches,” and virtually no economist does. They instead focus on “labor markets”—considered as broad aggregates of workers and firms—and on wage effects and wage differentials across immigrant groups and between immigrants and U.S.-born workers. Yet quantitative social scientists have come to recognize the large heterogeneity of skills in the native and immigrant populations and to understand that specific labor market involvements are also shaped by institutions and informal social dynamics.
You can read the entire article here.
Eckstein’s main focus is on Latin America. She has written most extensively on Mexico, Cuba, and Bolivia. Currently, she is working on immigration and its impact across borders. She recently published a sole-authored book on Cuban Americans and a co-edited book that focuses on homeland impacts of immigrants from different countries and regions of the world. Learn more about her here.