School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications

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    Coethnic Concentration and Asians' Perceived Discrimination across U.S. Counties during COVID-19.
    Lee, R ; Qian, Y ; Wu, C (SAGE Publishing, 2022)
    Aggregate figures unequivocally depict an increase in anti-Asian sentiment in the United States and other Western countries since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is limited understanding of the contexts under which Asians encounter discrimination. The authors examine how coethnic concentration shapes Asians' experiences of discrimination across U.S. counties during COVID-19 and also assess whether county-level context (e.g., COVID-19 infection rates, unemployment rates) could help explain this relationship. The authors analyze the Understanding Coronavirus in America tracking survey, a nationally representative panel of American households, along with county-level contextual data. The authors find an n-shaped relationship between coethnic concentration and Asians' perceived discrimination. This relationship is explained largely by county-level COVID-19 infection rates. Together, the context of medium Asian concentration and high COVID-19 cases created a particularly hostile environment for Asians during COVID-19.
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    The Nexus Between China's Global Image and Attitudes Toward Diasporic Chinese: A Comparison of Australia and the United States
    Tan, X ; Lee, R ; Ruppanner, L (ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2024-03-03)
    The COVID-19 pandemic intensified unfavorable international news coverage of the Chinese Government with consequences for the Chinese diaspora broadly. To understand these relationships, we conducted surveys in Australia and the United States from 8 to 21 June 2021. Using a survey experiment, we find a significant negative impact of the Chinese Government’s early handling of COVID-19 on public sentiment toward the Chinese Government in Australia but not in the United States. In both countries, expressing unfriendly feelings toward the Chinese Government tends to harm Chinese temporary residents more (compared to permanent residents). The associations between attitudes toward the Chinese Government and diasporic Chinese differ significantly across demographic groups but overall, holding cold attitudes toward the Chinese Government has stronger negative implications for diasporic Chinese in Australia.
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    Profiling racial prejudice during COVID-19: Who exhibits anti-asian sentiment in Australia and the United States?
    Tan, X ; Lee, R ; Ruppanner, L (WILEY, 2021-12)
    Following the COVID-19 outbreak, anti-Asian racism increased around the world, as exhibited through greater instances of abuse and hate crimes. To better understand the scale of anti-Asian racism and the characteristics of people who may be expressing racial prejudice, we sampled respondents in Australia and the United States over 31 August-9 September 2020 (1375 Australians and 1060 Americans aged 18 or above; source YouGov). To address potential social desirability bias, we use both direct and indirect (list experiment) questions to measure anti-Asian sentiment and link these variables to key socioeconomic factors. We find that, instead of being universal among general populations, anti-Asian sentiment is patterned differently across both country contexts and socioeconomic groups. In the United States, the most significant predictor of anti-Asian bias is political affiliation. By contrast, in Australia, anti-Asian bias is closely linked to a wide range of socioeconomic factors including political affiliation, age, gender, employment status and income.
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    Does the healthy immigrant effect apply to mental health? Examining the effects of immigrant generation and racial and ethnic background among Australian adults
    Lee, R (Elsevier Inc., 2019-04-01)
    The healthy immigrant effect (HIE) refers to the phenomena in which immigrants show greater health outcomes than the native-born population. However, it is unclear what is the extent to which HIE applies to various outcomes and populations. Much of the work on HIE has revolved around physical health outcomes; mental health, however, has not garnered the same level of attention with regard to HIE. It is also uncertain whether immigrants’ health advantage persists beyond one generation. This study assesses the mental health of the first, second, and third and higher generations (70,517 person-year observations) for individuals from various racial and ethnic backgrounds in Australia using Waves 1−16 of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. The dependent variable is mental health score and key independent variables include generation and racial and ethnic background. I control for age, educational attainment, labor force status, marital status, remoteness, household income, language, neighborhood disadvantage, citizenship, weight, and gender. Using linear regression with random effects, this study finds that mental health varies by generation; the third and higher generation show the greatest mental health score, followed by the first generation and the second generation, net of controls. Mental health score also varies by racial and ethnic background. Except for English-speaking groups, native-born Australians show a clear advantage over Europeans, North Africans/Middle Easterners, and Asians. Racial and ethnic disparities differ by generation and are strongest among the first generation. My findings extend HIE, which typically emphasize immigrants’ superior health outcomes over the native-born population but do not focus on racial and ethnic disparities among immigrants. My results suggest that immigrant groups vary widely in their mental health outcomes but these lessen over time. Overall, the findings suggest the limited applicability of HIE for a broad range of health outcomes and populations.
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    Racial Boundaries among Latinos: Evidence from Internet Daters’ Racial Preferences
    LEE, R ; Feliciano, C ; Robnett, B (University of California Press, 2011)
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    Immigrant Health Around the World: Evidence from the World Values Survey
    Noymer, A ; Lee, R (Springer Verlag, 2013-06-01)
    We describe the relationship between immigrant status and self-rated health around the world, both in raw descriptive statistics and in models controlling for individual characteristics. Using the World Values Survey (1981-2005), we analyze data from 32 different countries worldwide. We estimate four regression models per country. The basic model tests mean differences in self-rated health. Additional models add demographic and social class controls. Introduction of control variables (most particularly, age) changes the results dramatically. In the final model, net of controls, only two countries show poorer immigrant health and three countries show better immigrant health. The multivariate regression models net of controls show few differences in health status between immigrants and the native born. The age structure of immigrant populations is an important mediator of differences in health status compared to the native-born population.
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    Doing Good in the Hood? The Effects of Coethnic Concentration on the Educational Attainment of Mexican, Filipino, and Vietnamese Children of Immigrants
    LEE, R (Hipatia Press, 2016)
    An enduring puzzle in social science literature is that immigrants’ children belonging to Asian subgroups consistently outperform their Latino counterparts even after parents’ socioeconomic background is considered. These disparities may be explained by differences in the coethnic community. Using the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Data in California, this study quantitatively examines whether living with more coethnics affects the educational attainment of Mexican, Vietnamese, and Filipino children of immigrants. The results indicate that Vietnamese children benefit from living with a higher number of coethnics but Mexicans and Filipinos do not. The enduring Vietnamese effect may be attributed to underlying social characteristics of the Vietnamese community, such as their refugee status or norms about success. Overall, the effect of coethnic neighbors on education depends on immigrants’ aggregate characteristics.