This collaborative workshop brings together scholars from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and Xi’an Jiaotong University (XJTU) to share research on migration, youth development, psychological well-being, and transnational mobility. It will feature presentations from faculty and researchers across both institutions, offering valuable insights and opportunities for academic exchange.

Workshop Highlights

• Time: 2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
• Sessions:

• • Transnational Connections and Psychological Adaptation of High-skilled International Migrant Workers in Mainland China: Evidence from the Greater Bay Area
  • Bridging Real and Virtual Worlds: A Latent Class Analysis of Overlap between Offline and Online Delinquency and Victimization Among Rural-to-Urban Migrant Adolescents
  • Diaspora Strategies: Optimal Return Windows and the New Dynamics of Asian Scientific Mobility
  • Friendship Segregation and Psychological Well-Being among Migrant Youth in China
  • The Impact of Global Wildfire on Population Migration
  • Migration as a Livelihood Choices and Fertility Outcome in Rural China

Please click the “More Details” link below for an updated program schedule.

Abstract:

High-skilled immigrants are widely celebrated as drivers of innovation and economic growth. Yet why do immigrants deemed “the best and brightest” so often face constrained labor market mobility? This study examines this paradox through an economic sociology lens. I conceptualize the employment-based immigration system as an institutional architecture linking the state, firms, and workers in ways that organize unequal power relations and generate labor market inequality. Using novel population-level administrative data on 850,235 permanent labor certification applications evaluated by the U.S. government, I show that immigration policy embeds contradictory logics. Employer-sponsored temporary visas first normalize overeducation by binding migrants to firm sponsorship and restricting job mobility. During permanent employment screening, however, that same overeducation is penalized as a displacement threat to native workers, despite broad public support for rewarding immigrant human capital. I theorize this dynamic as a “skill paradox.” The study contributes to debates in economic sociology, immigration, and stratification, and illuminates how state-led talent governance shapes the global circulation of high-skilled workers.

If you are interested to join the webinar, please register in advance to receive the Zoom meeting details via email.

Abstract:

Parental spending is a key mechanism in the intergenerational transmission of advantage. Popular discourse portrays Asian Americans as a “model minority” that overinvests in education, yet systematic evidence remains limited. Using Consumer Expenditure Survey data (2009–2022), I examine pre-college spending differences between Asian American and White families and how race and class shape educational investments. Asians outspend Whites overall, but patterns vary by category: Asians spend more on recreational lessons and tutoring, complicating the view that their investments are narrowly academic. The gaps are largest among graduate-educated households, not among lower-educated households where achievement gaps are most salient. I extend the analysis to housing expenditure, given its role in access to public school quality. Comparing households with and without pre-college children shows that Asian families spend more on housing when children are present, with especially pronounced gaps at the lowest and highest ends of social class.

Abstract:

In recent decades, asset prices have outpaced consumer goods inflation and wages in many developed and some developing economies. In turn, scholars have suggested that asset ownership, especially homeownership, is increasingly important to individual life chances in these economies relative to employment, but less is known about how the political attitudes of asset owners and non-owners have changed. Using General Social Survey data spanning 1985 to 2022, I examine changes in Americans’ attitudes toward government redistribution and voting for Republican presidential candidates by homeownership status. I find evidence for a substantial divergence in the attitudes of homeowners and non-owners over this period. This divergence is evident not only in the overall population but also among non-professional/non-managerial employees and those earning less than the median income, substantiating longstanding claims that the working class is politically fragmented by homeownership. Furthermore, attitudinal differences by homeownership status exceed those between the self-employed, managers, professionals, and non-professional/non-managerial employees in the US today.

If you are interested to join the webinar, please register in advance to receive the Zoom meeting details via email.