Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Extended Stratification: Immigrant And Native Differences In Individual And Family Labor., Pidi Zhang, Jimy M. Sanders

Faculty Publications

The article outlines a theoretical system of extended stratification in order to account for differences between immigrants and natives in the amount of time individuals devote to paid work and the number of family members participating in paid work. The extended stratification theory contends that because people have different socio-economic frames of reference, they vary in their willingness to work long hours in an effort to achieve modest improvements in their current socioeconomic circumstances. Thus, immigrants from relatively poor societies tend to see their richer host society as abundant in opportunities for getting ahead through hard work. Immigrants will often …