Immigrant Context and Opportunity: New Destinations and Socioeconomic Attainment among Asians in the United States

Immigrant-origin populations, once overwhelmingly concentrated in a handful of receiving gateways, have dispersed in recent decades to scores of new destinations throughout the United States. This pattern and its implications for immigrant incorporation have received a great deal of attention, but the vast majority of research has focused on Hispanics. This article examines the relationship between settlement patterns and socioeconomic attainment (income, occupational status, and homeownership) among Asians. Drawing on individual- and metro-level information from the 2009 to 2011 American Community Survey, results suggest that Asians in new destinations face an important tradeoff between income and homeownership, and that differences across contexts are largely attributable to metropolitan labor and housing market conditions, rather than the ethnic context per se. However, there are important differences in outcomes among Asians by national origin and sex, and a comparison with whites suggests that inequality differs across new and more established Asian settlement areas.