Across Europe, children of low-educated migrants are entering high-status occupations. While the research literature has accounted for the determinants of this social mobility, few studies have explored how social mobility affects the lives of second-generation immigrant men and women in different ways. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 62 descendants of migrants in high-status occupations in Norway, this article asks how second-generation women and men experience their gendered opportunities and constraints after achieving upward social mobility. The analyses show how social mobility brings the second generation into social milieus where their majority Norwegian colleagues become their most relevant references for how to do work and family. Both the second-generation women and men share a strong dedication to work, however, while this requires the women to challenge gender-complementary expectations, the men largely rely on gender-complementary arrangements. The analyses thus suggest that social mobility changes the lives of women more than those of men.
This article reviews studies of hiring discrimination against racial and ethnic minority groups in cross-national perspective. We focus on field experimental studies of hiring discrimination: studies that use fictitious applications from members of different racial and ethnic groups to apply for actual jobs. There are more than 140 field experimental studies of hiring discrimination against ethno-racial minority groups in 30 countries. We outline seventeen empirical findings from this body of studies. We also discuss individual and contextual theories of hiring discrimination, the relative strengths and weaknesses of field experiments to assess discrimination, and the history of such field experiments. The comparative scope of this body of research helps to move beyond micromodels of employer decision-making to better understand the roles of history, social context, institutional rules, and racist ideologies in producing discrimination. These studies show that racial and ethnic discrimination is a pervasive international phenomenon that has hardly declined over time, although levels vary significantly over countries. Evidence indicates that institutional rules regarding race and ethnicity in hiring can have an important influence on levels of discrimination. Suggestions for future research on discrimination are discussed.
A large body of work has demonstrated the substantial intergenerational mobility experienced by children of immigrants, yet the institutional determinants of incorporation are poorly understood. Building on insights from neo-classical assimilation theory, this article analyzes in-depth interviews with 62 high-achieving children of labor immigrants from Pakistan, Turkey, India, and Morocco and investigates how they maneuvered through Norway's educational system and reached their current positions as medical doctors, lawyers, and business professionals. We show that these children of immigrants from low-income households capitalized on a series of institutional opportunity structures provided by Norway's egalitarian welfare state, such as a school system with high standardization and low stratification, free higher education, and a cultural and institutional context that supports women's employment. In line with neo-classical assimilation theory, we argue that the specific institutional structures and cultural beliefs in the Norwegian context shape the strategies and forms of adaptation chosen by ethnic minority groups. However, our analyses suggest the need for careful consideration of how such strategies and adaptations vary across national contexts.
I hvilken grad skiller den norske eliten og befolkningen for øvrig seg fra hverandre i synet på innvandring og kjønnslikestilling? Artikkelen analyserer data fra den norske Lederskapsundersøkelsen 2015, en spørreundersøkelse blant dem som besitter topposisjonene i ti sektorer i det norske samfunnet, og sammenligner elitens holdninger med den øvrige norske befolkningen. Vi finner en betydelig holdningsavstand mellom elite og befolkning, men at innvandring er mer polariserende enn kjønnslikestilling. Funnene diskuteres i lys av nyere, komparativ forskning på populisme og en voksende motstand mot liberale og post-materielle verdier, samt litteratur om kjønnslikestilling som en "nordisk verdi".
To what extent do the Norwegian elite and the population at large differ in their views on immigration and gender equality? The article analyzes data from the Norwegian Leadership Survey 2015, conducted among the holders of top positions in ten sectors in Norwegian society, and compares elite attitudes to attitudes in the Norwegian population. We find a considerable distance between elite and population, but immigration is more polarizing than gender equality. The findings are discussed in light of recent comparative research on populism and the growing resistance to liberal and post-material values, as well as literature on gender equality as a "Nordic value".