Diverse Social Mobility Trajectories: Portrait of Children of New Immigrants in Taiwan

Abstract

The present study examines the social mobility trajectories of children of new immigrants (those who have at least one new immigrant parent) in early adulthood (between the ages of 18 and 40) in Taiwan. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and online surveys. The findings demonstrate that there is no significant difference between the participating children of new immigrants and the general population in higher education attendance rate and annual income. Family socioeconomic status appears to be a significant factor in shaping their social mobility trajectories. Participants with a stable family financial situation are generally more advantaged, as seven out of eleven of them have graduated from a reputable university and have well-paid jobs. Nonetheless, there are some participants from a disadvantaged family background who have achieved upward mobility because their parents hold a positive attitude toward education and have found ways to support their education. There are other factors that have helped them overcome barriers posed by their family backgrounds such as supportive people, non-governmental organizations, and government policy. Although ethnic identity is trivial in this process generally, it is salient in certain situations thanks to relevant policy programs. The government’s recent emphasis on Southeast Asian languages and cultures and policy programs targeting children of new immigrants have made more choices available to them, which can be observed from their diverse social mobility trajectories.

1. Introduction

As shown in empirical studies conducted in Western contexts, that is, Europe and North America, there are often significant differences in social mobility across ethnic lines; ethnic minorities and immigrants generally fare less well socioeconomically than ethnic majorities (see, e.g., Arce et al. 1987; Behtoui 2013; Rumbaut 2008; Silberman et al. 2007; Tran et al. 2019). In the Taiwanese context, while no significant difference between the three Han subgroups—the Hoklo, the Hakka, and mainlanders—is found at present, there is still a significant socioeconomic gap between Han and indigenous peoples (Wu 2007). Official statistics suggest that the average monthly income of employed indigenous people was significantly less than that of the total employed population (Council of Indigenous Peoples 2021; Executive Yuan 2021). The increasing number of children of new immigrants from mainland China and Southeast Asia since the 1990s has brought new issues to the discussion of ethnic disparities in social mobility as research studies have shown that new-immigrant families have an average family income significantly lower than the general population (Chan and Chen 2014; National Immigration Agency 2020; Wu et al. 2015). Most of them have a native parent and an immigrant parent, but there are also individuals whose parents are both immigrants. Since a good number of these children have come of age, it may be crucial to understand how they fare socioeconomically in early adulthood, which would help throw light on whether they encounter specific difficulties or enjoy unique opportunities when they navigate their way to upward mobility as well as how well the society serves this population and achieves social equity.

Given that the majority of children of new immigrants are still in high school and college, there is no empirical research on their social mobility in early adulthood so far. Nonetheless, research studies focusing on their academic achievement in primary and secondary education have unveiled that students with Southeast Asian mothers tend to be disadvantaged in academic achievement while students with mainland Chinese mothers may not significantly differ from students with native parents (see, e.g., Chin and Yu 2008; Hsieh and Hsieh 2013; Tao et al. 2015). Due to this scarcity of research on the social mobility of children of new immigrants in early adulthood, this study aims to fill this gap by looking into their social mobility trajectories in early adulthood, which can draw a preliminary picture of possible pathways they go through to achieve their current socioeconomic status and factors that play a role in this process. Specifically, I focused on interactions between children of new immigrants and both micro (e.g., family financial situation) and macro (e.g., government policy) factors that lead them to their current socioeconomic status to answer the following questions:

• How do children of new immigrants take advantage of opportunities created by micro and macro factors?
• How do children of new immigrants overcome barriers posed by micro and macro factors?

By answering these questions, my study can also contribute to the general social science literature. As the extant literature on the immigrant second generation comes mainly from the United States, the traditional immigrant destination, and more recently, from Europe, we do not know much about the immigrant second generation in newly emerging immigrant destinations such as Taiwan where over 2.48% of the total population are new immigrants (National Immigration Agency 2023) and over 7% of the total student population are their children now (Ministry of Education 2022). In the more established immigrant destinations, it is found that ethnic identity has significant implications for social mobility due to factors such as discrimination and ethnic enclave (see, e.g., Edin et al. 2003; Fleischmann et al. 2011; Lee and Zhou 2014; Portes and Zhou 1993; Silberman et al. 2007; Slootman 2018). Exploring the experiences of children of new immigrants in Taiwan would help us scrutinize how well findings in Western contexts can generalize to other immigrant-receiving societies, particularly newly emerging ones where relevant empirical studies are still scarce. Furthermore, given that the vast majority of children of new immigrants in Taiwan were born to a native parent and a marriage migrant, which differentiates them from the immigrant second generation in other societies (Jhang and Lee 2018; Lin and Lu 2016), there may be experiences unique to these individuals that could expand our understanding of the social mobility of the immigrant second generation.

In the following sections, I first illustrate the general socioeconomic situation of new immigrants and their children. Next, I talk about social mobility in Taiwan. Third, I discuss my research methods. Fourth, I present research findings based on an online survey and in-depth interviews with children of new immigrants. In particular, I portray the educational and occupational attainment of children of new immigrants in early adulthood and how micro factors such as family, community, and school affect their social mobility trajectories and the role of government policy, the macro factor, in this process. It should be noted that although micro and macro factors are mentioned separately here, as we will see later in this article, in reality, they are closely intertwined and interact with each other in the social mobility process. I conclude this article by discussing important implications based on my research findings.

2. New Immigrants and Their Children

The significant influx of immigrants from Southeast Asian countries (e.g., Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand) and mainland China to Taiwan mainly began in the 1990s; despite the extreme diversity among them, they are often referred to as “new immigrants” (新住民) together (Chin and Yu 2008; Lim et al. 2016; Lin and Pham 2015; Lin and Lu 2016; Ma et al. 2018; Wang 2011). The vast majority (over 90%) of them are female immigrants who have come to Taiwan through marriage (National Immigration Agency 2023). Many of them married Taiwanese men from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds and with worse physical conditions who had difficulty finding a spouse in Taiwan and thus relied on their friends or matchmaking agencies to help them find a spouse overseas (Chan and Chen 2014; Chin and Yu 2008; Chiu and Ho 2008; Hu and Hsiao 2012; Ko 2017; Ma et al. 2018; National Immigration Agency 2020). Their children are commonly called “children of new immigrants” (新住民子女), or the “new second generation” (新二代), at present. A major difference between children of new immigrants in Taiwan and the typical second generation in other immigrant-receiving societies is that most of them have a native father and an immigrant mother (Jhang and Lee 2018; Lin and Lu 2016).

According to a number of research studies, children of new immigrants may face more obstacles than children with two Taiwanese parents in their journey to upward mobility. First, since the majority of new immigrants have come from a very different cultural background and have a relatively low level of education, they often do not possess the necessary knowledge and Chinese proficiency to help their children with homework and to effectively communicate with them (Chin and Yu 2008; Ministry of Education 2016a; National Immigration Agency 2020; Wang et al. 2012; Wu et al. 2015). In particular, only 18.1% of new immigrants and 29.9% of their spouses had attended higher education in 2018 (National Immigration Agency 2020); in contrast, 32.32% of the Taiwanese population aged 40 and above had attained higher education in the same year (Executive Yuan n.d.a).

Another issue is that due to their relatively low Chinese proficiency and educational attainment as well as legal restrictions and ethnic discrimination in the job market, a high percentage of new immigrants are economically and socially disadvantaged (Chan and Chen 2014; Ministry of Education 2016a; National Immigration Agency 2020). Although since 2008, the government began to loosen relevant labor laws and provide services such as vocational training and job search assistance for new immigrants and allowances for employers who hire new immigrant workers, new immigrants are still relatively disadvantaged economically (Chan and Chen 2014; National Immigration Agency 2020; Wu et al. 2015). The average monthly household income of new-immigrant families was TWD 52,574 while that of the total population was TWD 109,204 in 2018 (National Immigration Agency 2020). Further, new immigrants often cannot secure a job with reasonable wages and work hours (National Immigration Agency 2020); hence, in addition to limited financial resources, they may not be able to spend much time with their children.

Empirical research on children of new immigrants, since the 2000s, has paid specific attention to the academic achievement and school adjustment of this population. However, as the early cohorts began to come of age, the population of children of new immigrants in elementary school decreased from 147,013 in 2014 to 79,242 in 2021 while their population in high school and college grew from 25,228 and 3027 to 71,528 and 81,015, respectively, in the same period of time (Ministry of Education 2022). In addition, the National Immigration Agency (2020) shows that in 2018, about one-fourth of new immigrants had children who were aged 16 or above and were about to enter or were already in the labor market. Moreover, the 2016 New Southbound Policy (新南向政策) has significantly increased the demand for bilingual and multilingual professionals, which has resulted in the cultures and languages of new immigrants being seen as assets in recent years. Furthermore, the academic and policy communities have begun to discuss how to best prepare children of new immigrants for the global labor market by strengthening their linguistic skills and cross-cultural competence (Chan and Chen 2021; Lee and Chueh 2018).

3. Social Mobility in Taiwan

In the Taiwanese educational system, when students reach high school, they will be placed into either a general or a vocational track; whereas general high school students are expected to attend higher education that leads to higher occupational status, vocational high school students are more likely to enter the labor market directly after graduation and occupy positions lower in the occupational hierarchy (Tsai 1998). In general, general public high schools are at the top of the hierarchy while private vocational high schools are at the bottom in terms of prestige and quality (Peng et al. 2011; Tsai 1998). Empirical studies have shown that family background and the type of high school a student attends are correlated; it is also found that higher family socioeconomic status increases the likelihood of attending general public high schools while lower family socioeconomic status is positively associated with attending private vocational high schools (Chen et al. 2017; Hsueh 1996; Huang and Hwang 2014; Lee and Hwang 2010; Lin 1999; Tsai 1998).

Since the college entrance exams are an important sorting mechanism that determines college attendance, and public high schools on average perform better on these exams, the type of high school a student attends has a significant impact on their educational trajectory (Tsai 1998). Educational attainment then exerts a considerable effect on labor market outcomes. Overall, students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to have more years of education (Hsueh 1996; Wu 2007) and to attend higher education, which in turn leads to more opportunities for securing a position higher in the occupational hierarchy (Chung and Chen 2011). Nevertheless, in the Taiwanese educational system, not only is secondary education stratified but also tertiary education; that is, public universities are not only ranked higher but are also cheaper than private ones (Peng et al. 2011; Tsai 1998). In most cases, graduating from a public university will lead to higher occupational status (Hwang and Lin 2016; Peng et al. 2011; Sun and Hwang 1994; Tsai 1998). Therefore, it is obvious that students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are doubly disadvantaged because they often attend private high schools and colleges that are ranked lower in terms of prestige and quality but charge higher tuition fees due to their lower academic achievement (Tsai 1998).

In terms of ethnic disparities in socioeconomic status, Su and Yu (2007) indicate that many mainlanders who came to Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War were government officials, legislators, and intellectuals who were more educated than the other three ethnic categories, which gave mainlanders and their children a significant socioeconomic advantage. Further, as the majority of mainlanders worked in the public sector, their children enjoyed tuition subsidies and thus were more likely to attain higher education (Chen 2005; Fan and Chang 2010; Luoh 2001; Wu 2013). Empirically, Hsueh (1996) employed the Taiwan Social Change Survey (TSCS) datasets collected in 1992 and 1993 and revealed that mainlanders were more advantaged than the other three ethnic categories as they were more likely to attend general high school. Luoh (2001) demonstrated that mainlanders were the most advantaged group in terms of higher education attainment and years of education. Hsu and Chen (2004) showed that in 2002, mainlanders had the highest educational and occupational attainment, followed by the Hoklo, the Hakka, and indigenous peoples based on the Citizens Living Condition Survey 2002 in the Taiwan–Fuchien Area. Similarly, Wu (2007) found that mainlanders born between 1940 and 1959 had the most years of education, followed by the Hakka, the Hoklo, and indigenous peoples based on the Panel Study of Family Dynamics (PSFD) datasets collected in 1999 and 2000. Drawing on the PSFD datasets from 1999 to 2003, Chung and Chen (2011) confirmed that children of mainlanders were more likely to attend higher education than the other three ethnic categories combined.

However, the rapid expansion of compulsory education and economic growth that has made college more affordable to lower-income families since the 1960s has gradually wiped out mainlanders’ advantage (Chung and Chen 2011; Su and Yu 2007; Wu 2013). Using the TSCS datasets from 1990 to 2002 and data from the Taiwan Education Panel Survey (TEPS) conducted between 2000 and 2007, Su and Yu (2007) found that the gap between mainlanders and the other two Han subgroups, namely, the Hoklo and the Hakka, had shrunk dramatically. Chen’s (2005), Chung and Chen’s (2011), and Wu’s (2013) studies also demonstrated a similar trend across generations. In addition, Tsai (1998) revealed that there was no ethnic difference in occupational attainment based on the TSCS datasets from 1990 to 1994. This finding directly contrasts with that of Hsu and Chen (2004); a possible explanation is that Hsu and Chen did not take into consideration the fact that the dataset they used includes people from 20 to above 64 years old, that is, different generations of people, and thus overlooked the narrowing ethnic, socioeconomic gap across generations. Wu’s (2007) finding also unveiled that regarding years of education, for people born after 1960, there was no statistically significant difference between mainlanders and the other two Han subgroups, while indigenous peoples were still in a disadvantaged position compared to all three Han subgroups.

As a matter of fact, the socioeconomic gap between the Han and indigenous peoples persists even today. Although indigenous peoples are “first inhabitants” in Taiwan, due to historical injustices rooted in colonialism and their legacies today, a significant number of them do not fare as well as their Han counterparts socially and economically. For instance, in March 2021, the average monthly income of employed indigenous people was TWD 30,999 (Council of Indigenous Peoples 2021) while the average of the total employed population was TWD 43,259 (Executive Yuan 2021). Wu and Hwang (2009) utilized the 2003 Taitung Educational Panel Survey consisting of 2912 six-graders, of which 922 are indigenous, and found that indigenous students performed much worse than Han students, which was due to their lower family socioeconomic status and a higher rate of living in single-parent families. Based on the 2012 Pingtung Education Longitudinal Survey, Li and Tung (2018) also showed that indigenous families were in a worse socioeconomic situation than Han families in terms of parental educational and occupational status as well as household income.

4. Research Methodology

4.1. A Mixed-Methods Approach

The goal of the current study is to explore the social mobility trajectories of children of new immigrants in their early adulthood. Therefore, participants were children of new immigrants between the ages of 18 and 40; all are referred to by pseudonyms. Children of new immigrants are defined as those who have at least one birth parent who is a new immigrant, including both naturalized and unnaturalized new immigrant parents, regardless of their immigration types (e.g., marriage migration, labor migration, etc.). Accordingly, individuals who have adoptive parents who are new immigrants are excluded from the present study. In addition, new immigrants here are restricted to mainland Chinese and Southeast Asian immigrants; that is to say, those whose new immigrant parents are from other parts of the world, such as Europe, North America, and Northeast Asia, are excluded from this investigation. Furthermore, as I focus on children of new immigrants who have spent a significant period of their life in Taiwan, those who were mostly raised and live abroad currently are out of the scope of this study.

Data for the present study were both quantitative and qualitative. A research design well integrating both paradigms can capitalize on the strengths of both and compensate for their weaknesses (Gable 1994; Jick 1979; Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004). Johnson and Onwuegbuzie argue that using mixed methods “allows researchers to mix and match design components that offer the best chance of answering their specific research questions” (p. 15). Moreover, through “the cross-validation achieved when different kinds and sources of data converge and are found to be congruent or when explanation is developed to account for divergence” (Gable 1994, p. 115), I can increase the robustness of research findings. Gable (1994) further suggests that there are two major benefits of this integration. First, it helps “develop contextual richness that is valuable in model building” (Gable 1994, p. 120). Second, it can “improve internal validity and interpretation of quantitative findings through triangulation” (Gable 1994, p. 120).

4.2. Data Collection and Analysis

Quantitative data were collected through online survey questionnaires administered to adult children of new immigrants. Respondents had to provide basic demographic information, including age, gender, region of residence, educational attainment, current job, monthly income, parents’ education and jobs, etc. The total number of respondents to this online survey is 71.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics for survey background variables.

Variable	Count	Percentage
Gender
Male	30	42.25
Female	41	57.75
Age
Under 20	18	25.35
20–29	47	66.20
30–39	6	8.45
Education
High school	7	9.86
Associate	3	4.23
College	55	77.46
Master’s	6	8.45
Father’s ethnic background
Taiwanese	61	85.92
Mainland Chinese	3	4.23
Southeast Asian	7	9.86
Mother’s ethnic background
Taiwanese	5	7.04
Mainland Chinese	14	19.72
Southeast Asian	52	73.24

presents some relevant descriptive statistics.

Qualitative data were drawn from in-depth interviews with children of new immigrants. The method employed in this study was semi-structured interviewing, which included a set of predetermined topics and questions adapted from Slootman’s (2018) interview questions (see Appendix A). When I felt necessary, I also probed further into what they had said to obtain information that may be relevant to my research questions. The interviews were conducted at the participants’ preferred locations or online via applications such as LINE and Google Meet, mostly in private spaces where interviews were not easily interrupted by others. Each interview lasted for at least one hour and was audio-recorded. The sampling strategy employed was purposive sampling, which ensured that at least some participants whose parents are from each of the major immigrant groups (e.g., mainland Chinese, Vietnamese, Indonesians, etc.) as well as from different geographic regions in Taiwan were included in the present study. This study also utilized snowball sampling, namely, asking participants to invite other children of new immigrants to participate in this study.

Table 2. Basic demographic information of the interview participants.

	Participant	Gender	Age	Education	Job	Father’s Ethnic Background	Mother’s Ethnic Background
1	Jie	M	32	master’s	college lecturer	Hoklo	Chinese Vietnamese
2	Zi	F	23	bachelor’s	cosmetic clinic front desk administrator	Hoklo	mainland Chinese
3	Ling	F	21	associate’s	professional soldier	Hakka	Vietnamese
4	Liang	M	24	bachelor’s	high school PE teacher	Matsunese	mainland Chinese
5	Yi	F	22	associate’s	hair stylist assistant	Hoklo	Indonesian
6	Ming	M	38	bachelor’s	NGO project coordinator	mainlander	Hakka Indonesian
7	Tian	F	19	bachelor’s (in progress)	college student	Chinese Laotian	Filipina
8	Hui	F	23	high school	factory worker	Hoklo	Filipina
9	Jin	F	35	master’s	professional writer	mainlander	Hakka Indonesian
10	Ting	F	28	master’s	international company logistics coordinator	Hoklo	Chinese Malaysian
11	Yuan	M	27	bachelor’s	media company camera assistant	Hoklo	Chinese Malaysian
12	Hong	F	19	bachelor’s (in progress)	college student	mainland Chinese	mainland Chinese
13	Zhao	F	20	bachelor’s (in progress)	college student	Hoklo	Chinese Indonesian
14	Xuan	F	20	associate’s	hospital nurse	Hoklo	Vietnamese
15	Cai	F	27	master’s	consulting firm strategic planning coordinator	Chinese Vietnamese	Chinese Vietnamese
16	Rui	M	22	bachelor’s (in progress)	automotive service technician	mainlander	mainland Chinese
17	Shan	F	25	master’s (in progress)	graduate student	Hoklo	Thai
18	Jing	M	20	bachelor’s (in progress)	college student	Hoklo	Chinese Malaysian
19	Peng	M	20	bachelor’s (in progress)	college student	Thai	Atayal (indigenous)
20	Shi	M	19	high school	family business gofer	Hoklo	Vietnamese
21	Xian	M	24	bachelor’s	freelance graphic designer	Hoklo	Chinese Filipina
22	Xin	F	20	high school	restaurant server	Hoklo	Thai
23	Ying	F	20	bachelor’s (in progress)	college student	Hoklo	Chinese Indonesian
24	Lin	F	22	bachelor’s (in progress)	college student	Chinese Burmese	Vietnamese
25	Guo	M	21	high school	convenient store cashier	Hoklo	mainland Chinese
26	Wen	F	22	bachelor’s (in progress)	college student	Hoklo	Chinese Vietnamese
27	Yu	F	21	bachelor’s (in progress)	college student	Hoklo	Chinese Vietnamese
28	Qing	F	24	bachelor’s	cram school English teacher	Mainland Chinese	mainland Chinese
29	Qi	F	21	bachelor’s (in progress)	digital media editing assistant	Hoklo	Chinese Vietnamese
30	Jun	F	23	bachelor’s	international company sales assistant	Hoklo	Burmese
31	Yan	M	25	bachelor’s	government agency contract worker	Chinese Burmese	Burmese
32	Zhi	M	24	bachelor’s	hotel accountant	Hoklo	Hakka Indonesian
33	Lai	M	21	Bachelor’s (in progress)	college student	Hakka	mainland Chinese
34	Wan	F	23	bachelor’s	beautician	Hoklo	Vietnamese
35	Cheng	M	30	bachelor’s	factory production supervisor	Hoklo	Chinese Vietnamese
36	Sheng	M	22	bachelor’s (in progress)	college student	Hoklo	Chinese Vietnamese
37	Wei	F	21	bachelor’s (in progress)	college student	Kinmenese	Chinese Indonesian
38	Liao	F	18	bachelor’s (in progress)	college student	Hoklo	mainland Chinese
39	Rong	F	19	bachelor’s (in progress)	college student	Hoklo	Vietnamese
40	Chang	M	22	bachelor’s	job hunting	Hoklo	Hakka Indonesian
41	Hua	F	21	bachelor’s (in progress)	college student	Hoklo	Vietnamese
42	Han	F	22	bachelor’s (in progress)	college student	Hoklo	Vietnamese

shows the basic demographic information of the participants. There are 42 participants in total. There are also 16 schoolteachers and 15 social workers who have experience working with new immigrants and their children participating in the study.

Qualitative data were analyzed using the grounded theory method by following the subsequent procedure. First, interview transcripts were read through several times to identify “potential themes that arise” (Bernard and Ryan 1998, p. 607). Next, after potential themes were identified, all the data under these themes were compared to understand the relationships among the themes in order to build a theoretical model (Bernard and Ryan 1998). After the model began to take shape, specific attention was paid to “negative cases,” that is, cases that “do not fit the pattern,” and the model was modified based on these cases (Bernard and Ryan 1998, p. 608). By following these steps, a theoretical model that was “grounded” in the data was built (Bernard and Ryan 1998). Important findings are presented in the following section.

5. Findings

5.1. Educational and Occupational Attainment in Early Adulthood

Table 2 shows that 90.48% (38 out of 42) of the interview participants have attended or are attending higher education. In particular, 96.15% (25 out of 26) of those who graduated from general high school and 81.25% (13 out of 16) of those who graduated from vocational high school attended or are attending higher education. Similarly, 90.14% (64 out of 71) of the survey respondents have attended or are attending higher education. Specifically, 97.67% (42 out of 43) of those who graduated from general high school and 78.57% (22 out of 28) of those who graduated from vocational high school attended or are attending higher education. According to the Executive Yuan (n.d.b) statistics, the percentage of general high school graduates attending higher education has been around 95% from 2008 to 2021, while about 80% of vocational high school graduates have attended higher education in the same period. It seems that the interview participants and the survey respondents do not differ significantly from the general population in higher education attendance rate.

Regarding those who have entered the labor market, both my interviews and online survey revealed that there is a wide variety of occupations, including college lecturer, nurse, factory worker, restaurant server, etc.; only two work as factory workers. There is no observable concentration of the participating children of new immigrants in certain segments of the labor market. However, based on my small and non-random samples, it is impossible to examine whether children of new immigrants in Taiwan truly differ from children of recent immigrants in societies such as the United States and some European countries. In Western contexts, it is often found that recent immigrants and their children, particularly non-white individuals, are confined to certain segments of the labor market, typically those on the lower rungs of the occupational hierarchy (see, e.g., Chen and Hou 2019; Goodwin-White 2009; Herzog-Punzenberger 2003; Lessard-Phillips et al. 2012; Maes et al. 2019). On the other hand, it is empirically shown that with regard to recent immigrants and their children to whom sizeable ethnic communities are available, it is possible for them to achieve upward mobility within their own ethnic community if the community has developed its own business structure because there are a range of occupational opportunities that are typically filled by members of the ethnic group; this provides an alternative path to upward mobility for them when their social mobility is blocked in the mainstream labor market (see, e.g., Fong and Shen 2011; Portes and Manning 2006; Zhou 1992).

In the Taiwanese context, there is no such sizeable immigrant community functioning as a small society within the larger society currently. Furthermore, as stated previously, most of the new second generation in Taiwan are children of a native father and a marriage migrant mother, which means that they are unlikely to live in a community where a significant number of the ethnicity of their new immigrant parents are concentrated, as female marriage migrants usually live in their Taiwanese husbands’ homes. Thus, the kind of residential segregation documented in Western contexts (Vertovec 2010) is not observed in the present study. Although some participants mentioned that there are a good number of children of new immigrants in their community, it is typical that not all of the new immigrant parents are from the same country of origin and they may not interact with each other at all; further, these communities are still largely inhabited by Taiwanese people. This situation seems to be true in both urban and rural communities; there may be a higher density of new immigrants in rural communities, but they tend to be from different countries of origin. The formation of the kind of immigrant community observed in Western immigrant-receiving societies is more difficult under such conditions in Taiwan. Therefore, ethnic identity is less likely to have significant implications for the social mobility of children of new immigrants. Yet, due to the non-random nature of my samples, it is unlikely that I can generalize this finding to the entire population of children of new immigrants in Taiwan.

On the other hand, only 10 interview participants (23.81%) and 21 survey respondents (29.58%) have a father who has completed higher education. Moreover, 10 interview participants (23.81%) and 15 survey respondents (21.13%) have a mother who has completed higher education. These figures do not differ much from the National Immigration Agency statistics (2020) regarding new-immigrant families in 2018 (18.1% for new immigrants and 29.9% for their spouses), but are lower than the national figure (32.32% for the Taiwanese population aged 40 and above) (Ministry of the Interior 2020). It is thus clear that in terms of parental educational attainment, the participating children of new immigrants are in a relatively disadvantaged situation compared to the general population. Even though it appears that there is no significant concentration of the parents in particular segments of the labor market, eight of the interview participants’ fathers and 12 of the survey respondents’ fathers are construction workers; eight of the interview participants’ mothers and 11 of the survey respondents’ mothers are factory workers. The survey also asks respondents to specify their family financial situation when they were at the age of 15. Five respondents chose “very bad”, 19 chose “bad”, and 37 chose “average”; that is, the respondents are concentrated in the lower middle.

In addition,

Table 3. Intergenerational comparisons of socioeconomic status.

	Respondent	Father	Mother
Years of education	15.28 (1.70)	11.43 (3.21)	10.26 (3.94)
		(p < 0.001)	(p < 0.001)
Occupational status	43.78 (12.54)	39.95 (13.46)	33.85 (11.74)
		(p = 0.131)	(p < 0.001)
Monthly income	36,481.48 (14,941.07)	NA	NA

Note: standard deviations are in brackets.

shows that the respondents are significantly more educated than their parents. They have 15.28 years of education on average, but their fathers and mothers have 11.43 and 10.26 years of education on average, respectively; in other words, while the respondents are college-educated, their parents are high-school-educated on average. Regarding occupational status, each occupation is given a score based on the international socioeconomic index of occupational status (ISEI) developed by Ganzeboom et al. (1992). The respondents have a higher average score than their fathers, but it is not statistically significant; on the other hand, their average ISEI score is significantly higher than their mothers. Regarding monthly income, the respondents’ average is TWD 36,481.48 (TWD 1 is about USD 0.033 as of 2 March 2023).

Table 4. Annual income by age group.

	Age < 25	Age 25–29	Age 30–39
National median	359,000	479,000	541,000
Respondent	396,000	460,000	590,000
	(n = 52, p = 0.225)	(n = 9, p = 0.666)	(n = 6, p = 0.565)

Note: national medians are based on the statistics provided by the Executive Yuan (2022b).

further demonstrates that the respondents’ average annual incomes by age group do not significantly differ from the national medians in 2021. In short, compared to their parents, the respondents are clearly upwardly mobile, at least in terms of educational attainment. In addition,

Table 5. Comparisons between children of southeast Asian and mainland Chinese immigrants.

	Years of Education	Occupational Status	Monthly Income
Southeast Asian (n = 55)	15.30	42.46	36,219.51
Mainland Chinese (n = 16)	15.18	48.90	37,307.69
	(p = 0.819)	(p = 0.216)	(p = 0.839)

reveals that there is no significant difference between children of Southeast Asian and mainland Chinese immigrants. In what follows, I explore the role of both micro and macro factors in their social mobility trajectories.

5.2. Family Socioeconomic Status

Family socioeconomic status is perhaps the most influential factor in the participants’ social mobility trajectories. For some, family socioeconomic status has greatly limited their social mobility in early adulthood. For instance, Hui was born into a working-class family and was told by her parents since childhood that she had to begin work as soon as possible to support the family, given her family’s tough financial situation. As she remarks, “at first, I planned to go to college, but they (Hui’s parents) told me and my sister to begin work straight after [high school] graduation.” After considering her family’s financial situation, she gave up her college dream as well as her dream to become an animator. In fact, her family was classified as a low-income family until she began to work and received her first salary right after graduating from a vocational high school. Her younger sister followed a similar path and began to work as a factory worker after high school graduation.

In contrast, Jie’s father was an established lawyer and his mother is college-educated. Due to their financial stability, they were able to provide a home environment conducive to education for Jie and his older brother in which they never needed to worry about financial issues. In Jie’s words, “throughout our education, we didn’t encounter many obstacles. For example, during our schooling, we didn’t need to work for our family…, we didn’t need to do street vending…, we had more time to study.” After college graduation, Jie’s brother went to France and received his master’s degree in architecture and now works as an architect there. Jie completed his graduate education at a reputable public university but did not want to stop just there and thus applied for and was accepted by a Ph.D. program in Vietnam; his studies would even be fully sponsored by the Taiwanese government. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he had to postpone his doctoral studies and works as a college lecturer before he will be able to go to Vietnam.

Ting’s father was a middle school teacher; her mother came to Taiwan from Malaysia as a college student and met her father during that time. Similar to Jie’s parents, her parents created a good home environment and let Ting and Yuan, her younger brother, choose what they want to do. However, after Ting and Yuan make decisions, their parents are there whenever they need help. Their parents also supported them to go to cram school when they struggled with some school subjects. During summer and winter breaks, they tried their best to let their children participate in as many activities and camps as possible to enrich their learning experiences. Moreover, their mother taught them English at home when they were young, which helped develop an interest in English. Given her interest in English, Ting majored in applied English in college and later pursued a master’s in business administration (MBA). Thanks to her expertise in English and business administration, she now works for an international company as a logistics coordinator.

It should be noted that despite lower levels of education, some parents were able to support their children’s education effectively given their financial stability. For example, Cai’s parents did not even have an elementary school education back in Vietnam, but Cai managed to obtain a master’s degree in applied economics from a well-known public university and works as a strategic planning coordinator at a consulting firm. An important reason may be that despite being poorly educated, her father began to learn how to make aluminum windows and doors after working as a factory worker for a while and later started an aluminum window and door manufacturing business with his friends, which has become a firm financial foundation for her family. Being financially stable, her parents were able to send the children to after-school programs where their homework was taken care of, hence compensating for their inability to help with their children’s homework. Being as supportive as possible in spite of their low education level, Cai’s parents also enabled her sister to pursue a master’s degree in material science at a famous Japanese university.

There are other participants whose parents opened their own restaurant, which became the main source of their family income. Lin’s father is a Chinese Burmese who never went to school in Myanmar and came to Taiwan in his 30s. He first worked as a construction worker; after Lin’s mother opened a Vietnamese restaurant, he began to work there. Whereas her father was uneducated before immigrating to Taiwan, her mother has a high school diploma. Given that their restaurant business has been a success, they were able to provide educational resources for Lin and her older brother. When she said that she wanted to attend a costly private boarding middle school, her mother agreed and paid the tuition fees. Further, her mother always attended parent–teacher conferences and even contacted schoolteachers by herself because she was eager to know how her children performed at school. Her mother’s support enabled her to go to a highly-regarded public university, and given her increasing interest in her Vietnamese heritage, she chose to be a Southeast Asian Studies major. As can be seen, due to their stable financial situation, the parents of these participants have been able to not only support their children’s education financially but also involve themselves in the education of their children.

In short, some participants were significantly limited by a disadvantaged family socioeconomic status, while others benefitted from a stable family financial situation. Even though some parents were not well-educated, they worked hard to achieve upward mobility within their generation by starting their own businesses and thus created a home environment in which their children did not need to worry about any financial issues and could invest their time and energy into studies. As Tsay (1999) points out, the rapid economic growth and industrial structural change in the 1990s generated more opportunities for upward mobility; a unique phenomenon was that a significant number of people started their own small and medium-sized businesses and therefore were able to provide their children with a financially stable home environment, which can be observed in some of the cases presented here. Moreover, there are also some parents who were not highly educated and/or financially stable, but they nevertheless tried their best to support their children’s education and made it possible for their children to move up the socioeconomic ladder. I discuss these cases further in the following subsection.

5.3. Parental Attitude toward Education

Even though some parents were unable to achieve upward mobility by themselves, they tried their best to successfully support their children. Parental attitude toward education thus appears to be an important moderator that eases some negative effects of a disadvantaged family background. Jin’s father was a mainlander veteran who came to Taiwan after China was taken over by the Communist party and her mother was a Hakka Indonesian who came to Taiwan as a marriage migrant for better financial opportunities. While both of her parents were neither highly educated (her father finished middle school and her mother elementary school) nor well-off (her father was a night market vendor and her mother a restaurant worker), they were willing to support her decisions and pay for whatever people said was good for her. For example, “others said that kids should go to kindergarten, although there was no kindergarten in his (her father’s) time, he still paid for you to go to kindergarten.” When she wanted to go to cram school, they paid the fee for her without hesitation. She graduated from a top public university with both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in drama and theatre and became a professional writer. Now, she plans to pursue a doctoral degree in creative writing in the United States.

Sheng’s father only finished elementary school and works as a night market vendor currently. His mother finished middle school in Vietnam and works at a factory. Although Sheng’s family is classified as a low-income family, his parents cared much about his education; when he felt the need to go to cram school, they just told him not to worry about the fee because they wanted him to seize the opportunity. Moreover, when he did not do well in school, they shortened his time for playing as a punishment. Having low educational attainment that prevented them from finding a white-collar job, his parents understand how important education is very well. Sheng states that “because their levels of education aren’t very high, since I was little, they kept telling me to value educational opportunities, encouraging me to study well.” They often told him that “their jobs aren’t very easy (labor-intensive)…. In their opinion, if you perform well academically, do well on the [college entrance] exam, go to a good school (college), have a good education, you can do an easier job (not labor-intensive).” Apparently, he did not disappoint his parents; when I interviewed him, he was about to graduate from a highly regarded public university with a bachelor’s degree in Southeast Asian Studies. He planned to begin job-hunting after finishing his four-month compulsory military service.

Han’s mother finished middle school in Vietnam and came to Taiwan with little knowledge of the Taiwanese educational system. Nevertheless, working as a manicurist, she always asked her customers which school was the best in the town and sent her two daughters to the school. Furthermore, she understands that cram schooling is important in Taiwan, so she also obtained information from her customers and sent her daughters to the best cram school in the nearby area. Moreover, to provide a better study environment at home, Han’s mother had talked to her father about reforming the house to build a study room for her, but her father did not accept it. Therefore, her mother decided to take her and her younger sister to live with her aunt who lived closer to the middle school that Han was going to attend. Moreover, her mother went to all the parent–teacher conferences and always talked with teachers about Han’s school performance, which differs greatly from what is described in the literature, that new immigrant parents are less able to communicate with teachers effectively (Huang and Chen 2016; Wang et al. 2012). Han did not disappoint her mother and was accepted by a top public university and is currently a senior double-majoring in law and social work.

As revealed by these participants, an important practice that may have facilitated their upward mobility was cram schooling. To compensate for their lack of familiarity with the Taiwanese educational system and the kind of cultural capital valued in school, many parents let their children go to cram school which helped them academically keep up with peers from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. In Taiwan, cram schooling is a common practice for families who are able to afford the cost. Although the effect of cram schooling on academic performance, particularly performance on the college entrance exam, has been found to be mixed empirically, relevant research has nevertheless shown that as long as students choose the right subjects to learn in cram school and/or at the right time, their academic performance will improve (see, e.g., Chang 2021; Chen and Hwang 2011; Kuan and Lee 2010; Lin and Chen 2006; Lin and Hwang 2009; Liu 2006; Yin et al. 2012). Despite the fact that the effect of cram schooling on academic performance, especially high-stakes tests such as the college entrance exam, cannot be proven directly based on my interviews, the participants nonetheless state that attending cram school compensated for their parents’ inability to help with their homework due to lower educational levels or time constraints and helped them prepare for high-stakes tests.

5.4. Supportive People

There are also participants whose parents were not only financially unstable but also did not pay much attention to their children in the participants’ opinion, but they managed to graduate from college and work an adequate job now because they met people who had played a supportive role in their social mobility trajectories. For instance, Qing’s parents divorced when she was little and she has lived with her mother since then. Yet, when she was in middle school, her mother often went back to mainland China and stayed there for the majority part of the year; she was left home alone and her teachers did not even notice her situation. Her elementary school teacher changed this situation, inviting her to live with her during high school and encouraging her to go to college, as it is the basic requirement for many jobs. What is more, her teacher brought her to church; Christianity became her spiritual support at that time and even enabled her to forgive her mother eventually and hence focus on her own life. Without these supportive people, she may not have been able to graduate from college and work as a cram school English teacher.

Jun’s parents are still together now, but they have never taken care of their children according to Jun; her grandmother instead took care of Jun and her younger brother. Her father did not finish middle school and has always worked part-time as a construction worker; her mother did not finish elementary school and owing to some family issues, quit her job. Due to her family’s financial situation, she began to work part-time after turning 15. As she discloses, “ in elementary school, indeed, I felt a bit alienated [from classmates], I felt that my family seemed to be very different from classmates’ families…. I thought why my mother was like that, why my father was like that, why my family financial situation was like that. This made me feel ashamed of myself, and then I was afraid of Father’s and Mother’s Days because my relationship with them wasn’t that good…”.

Although facing such a difficult situation, she tried her best to graduate from a reputable private university and works as a sales assistant at an international company currently; her younger brother also works hard and is a fifth-year medical student. Throughout her journey to upward mobility, she was financially supported by a scholarship for adolescents from low-income families offered by a Christian organization. Moreover, she was able to go to cram school in sixth grade because her classmate’s mother introduced her to a cram schoolteacher who did not charge much. In addition, when she needed to make decisions related to education, occupations, and other aspects of her life, her classmate’s mother was always willing to offer her advice, which prevented her from going astray.

Liang is another noteworthy case. His father was a construction worker and his mother worked part-time. His father had alcoholism and often had quarrels with his mother; therefore, he did not have a home environment that made him feel safe or was conducive to his education. Joining the school wrestling team with his friends in fifth grade was perhaps the most important opportunity he seized so far in his life. First, as the wrestling team had practices at night, he was able to stay in school and avoided going home during the time when his father drank. Further, the wrestling team, according to him, was like a big family in which everyone supported one another, which provided him with a refuge from the harsh home environment. Second, he kept improving his wrestling skills and gradually began to win medals in small and big competitions, which in turn motivated him to continue wrestling. Additionally, he was able to use the prize money to support his family financially, which somewhat eased his mother’s burden because she had to work three jobs from morning to night after his father passed away in an accident when Liang was in middle school. Third, his achievements in wrestling enabled him to go to an elite public sports university. He continued to compete both domestically and internationally and eventually won a medal in an international competition. Yet, due to his family’s financial situation, he decided to become a high school physical education (PE) teacher and a wrestling coach back in his hometown after college graduation.

As can be seen in these cases, although family socioeconomic status indeed plays a role in shaping one’s social mobility trajectory, social capital nevertheless has had a nontrivial influence on the participants’ social mobility, as they were enabled by key persons to draw resources within their social networks such as attending cram school at a lower cost, which seemed to help them achieve upward mobility. On the other hand, it is clear in Liang’s case that he was still constrained by his family’s financial situation: he gave up chasing his dream of competing in the Olympic Games and chose to be a PE teacher in his hometown instead. In addition to these supportive people, as we will see in the following subsection, there are organizations providing educational and financial resources for some participants that created opportunities for them to move upward socioeconomically.

5.5. Christian Church and Non-Governmental Organizations

An unexpected theme that has emerged is that 33.33% (14 out of 42) of the participants and/or their families have received help from Christian organizations, whether financially, academically, or psychologically. Moreover, 28.57% (12 out of 42) of the participants identify themselves as Christians, including Catholics, Protestants, and Unificationists. This is particularly striking given that less than 10% of the Taiwanese population identified themselves as Christians in a 2019 survey (American Institute in Taiwan 2021). A plausible reason why there is a high percentage of Christians in my sample is that I recruited participants mainly through non-governmental organizations (NGOs), of which many are associated with Christian churches; hence, it may not be surprising to see that there are a significant number of Christians in the sample. Yet, it must be noted that participants who have received services from these organizations are not necessarily Christians; in fact, a number of them did not become Christians because of their contact with Christian organizations. Although this finding cannot be generalized to the entire new second-generation population, it nevertheless sheds some light on the influence of Christianity on some of the participants’ lives.

The most common service the participants received from Christian organizations was after-school tutoring. They often provided after-school programs in which tutors helped children do their homework. Even though it is impossible to examine whether these tutoring programs really had a positive effect on the academic achievement of the participants here, they may nevertheless provide the participants with a safe place to go after school and an opportunity to at least finish their homework. A number of the participants also received scholarships from the fifth to twelfth grade from a Christian organization; they were qualified for the scholarship given their less optimistic family financial situation.

For a few participants, Christianity plays a larger role than that in their lives. For example, Xuan’s father had a stroke and almost lost his life when she was in high school; when this incident happened, people from her church paid a visit to her family to comfort them. She further asserts that “the church is really my second home”; she is able to share her private matters and relax with church people. What is more, she feels that “if I didn’t know this place (the church), I don’t know what I would’ve been now.” In fact, she attempted to die by suicide but did not. A major factor that contributed to her suicide attempt (or perhaps attempts) was her family situation, including her parents’ separation when she was in middle school and her father’s stroke, which was particularly disastrous as he was the sole breadwinner at that time. She managed to pass the nursing exam and works as a nurse at a hospital now despite the strong negative effect of her family issues on her life.

As already discussed earlier, Christianity also played a role in Qing’s life. Due to her mother’s frequent absence, she held a grudge against her mother for a long time and could not move on. What changed her mind was a meeting at her church. At the meeting, someone shared that “when you meet someone whom you hate, whom you can’t forgive in your life, they are actually whom God sends to you… to refine your mind.” She suddenly felt that perhaps God’s purpose in letting her mother become her mother was not really to raise and educate her but to give her a problem she must solve in her life. After changing her thinking, she felt that she could forgive her mother and thus called her mother; both of them apologized to each other on the phone. After this call, she felt that she could move on with her life step by step. Later, she graduated from a well-known private university and works as a cram school English teacher at present. Although it is difficult to examine whether Christianity had a positive effect on the social mobility of participants like Xuan and Qing directly or indirectly, it seems that it has nevertheless had a function of improving their psychological well-being, which may have some implications for their quality of life.

There are also non-Christian NGOs that have played a role in the participants’ social mobility trajectories. Sheng reports that since his family was classified as a low-income family, they were able to live in public housing. In the community, there was an NGO that focused on children from low-income families, providing after-school tutoring on Tuesdays and Thursdays and summer camps for children from elementary to middle school. He joined the tutoring program in elementary school and later became a volunteer himself in high school and college. He also joined another tutoring program in the community provided by a college student community service organization on Mondays and Wednesdays in elementary school. As many parents in the community had to work even on weekends due to their financial situation, these organizations helped the parents take care of their children and provided a safe place for the children to go when the parents were not at home. These cases again demonstrate the importance of social capital in the participants’ social mobility trajectories, which seemed to buffer some negative effects of their disadvantaged family background.

5.6. Ethnic Identity

It is important to note that even though ethnic identity seems to be insignificant in most participants’ social mobility trajectories, it appears that a few participants have benefitted from their ethnic identity due to government policy. As a matter of fact, given the government’s policies focusing on helping new immigrants and their children adapt to Taiwanese society since the mid-2000s as well as building cooperative relationships with Southeast Asian countries in recent years, there have been more and more opportunities available to children of new immigrants in the past two decades. Thanks to the recent emphasis on cooperation with Southeast Asian countries, new immigrants and their children have been more likely to be seen in a positive light because of their perceived linguistic and cultural familiarity, which may play a vital role in establishing close relationships with these countries. As some participants, such as Jun and Shan, observe, the entire society has become increasingly friendly to new immigrants and their children in recent years. This, in turn, may have enabled children of new immigrants to strategically use their ethnic identity to gain an advantage in some situations. For instance, Ling tells me that during college interviews, “I always say that I’m not Taiwanese but of mixed heritage. It’s a way to promote myself.” After this statement, even those absent-minded interviewers would suddenly pay attention to her and be eager to know more about her. Through this kind of practice, she was able to gain acceptance to colleges of her choice.

Furthermore, being a child of a mainland Chinese mother, when Liao applied to college, she was eligible for special admissions offered by a reputable public university that gives priority to children of new immigrants and other students who are deemed disadvantaged. There were also other students in her high school class who gained admission to colleges of their choice via special admissions for children of new immigrants. Similarly, Rong, who has a Vietnamese mother, was admitted to a well-regarded private university through special admissions. In fact, since 2021, more and more universities, both public and private, began to offer this kind of special admission. This practice may provide children of new immigrants with more opportunities to attend universities of their choice, including the top public universities, which in turn may help them secure jobs higher in the occupational hierarchy after graduation.

Yan also reveals that he was able to join a government program that aimed to familiarize college students with the public sector by providing them with internship opportunities at government agencies during the summer break of his junior year because this program gave priority to children of new immigrants, indigenous students, and other assumed disadvantaged students. This internship opportunity has helped him get the hang of duties required by jobs in the public sector. After college graduation, he has been able to work as a contract worker at government agencies and utilize skills he has acquired during the internship. It is noteworthy that Liao, Rong, and Yan all identify themselves as Taiwanese in general, but when there are benefits associated with the new second-generation identity, they would choose this identity without hesitation. Similar practices are found among the dual-ethnicity participants in Lim’s (2017) study in Malaysia who tended to adopt a “Malay” identity that is associated with educational and occupational benefits. Wang et al.’s (2021) case study of an individual of indigenous-Han parentage in Taiwan also shows that by registering as indigenous officially, this individual was able to gain college admission based on the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act. This kind of practice provides some evidence supporting the argument made by Jenkins (2008) and Nagel (1994) that ethnic identity can be a “social resource” that individuals derive benefits from in certain contexts.

There are other participants who have gained an advantage due to their ethnic identity but in a more passive way. For example, Hong shares that being a child of a mainland Chinese mother has brought some advantages to her. To be specific, she was able to attend an after-school tutoring program targeting children of new immigrants and disadvantaged children offered by a local church in elementary school. What is more, thanks to a teacher in the after-school program, she was able to learn the violin at a low cost because the teacher has a friend who is a music teacher. This further enabled her to seize the chance of enrolling in a special music program in a public high school; students in this program usually become college music majors after graduation and later either work as musicians or music teachers when entering the labor market. This opportunity, in turn, led to her becoming a music major at a reputable public university currently. As she acknowledges, without being categorized as “the new second generation,” which qualified her to attend the after-school tutoring program, she would not have had such an achievement. This also confirms that the Christian Church has played an important role in some of the participants’ journey to upward mobility.

Other than ethnicity-relevant policy programs, for some participants, ethnic identity has played a role in their social mobility trajectory mainly in terms of motivation. For instance, Jie’s social mobility trajectory has been significantly shaped by the interaction between his ethnic identity and the changing institutional context. During his childhood and adolescence, issues related to new immigrants and their children have not yet emerged; therefore, he just lived an “ordinary” Taiwanese life and ethnic identity was never a salient factor in his life during this period. Yet, when he went to college in the late 2000s, right after the establishment of the National Immigration Agency, society began to change; new immigrants and their children became more visible to the government and the public. In his freshman year, he seized the opportunity to learn Vietnamese, which was the first time the university offered this course, and even became a high school Vietnamese teacher in his junior year. Although it is possible for him to learn Vietnamese as his mother tongue, this did not happen when he was young. What changed his attitude toward his immigrant heritage was the growing visibility of the new immigrant population since the mid-2000s and the opportunities associated with it; this has made his ethnic identity a crucial factor in his social mobility trajectory.

For participants such as Shan, Lin, and Sheng, ethnic identity has played a role in shaping their social mobility trajectory as well. All of them chose to major in Southeast Asian Studies in college and gained a good mastery of their new immigrant parents’ mother tongues through enrolling in the program. As they indicate, their motivation was mainly shaped by their ethnic identity; if they had not been children of new immigrants, they would not have chosen Southeast Asian Studies as their major. Shan also went to Thailand, her mother’s home country, as an exchange student in her senior year and secured a job at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Thailand after graduation. Likewise, Lin received an internship opportunity at a Taiwanese investment advisory firm in Vietnam, her mother’s country of origin, during the summer break in her freshman year. This opportunity was part of a National Immigration Agency project that aimed to empower new immigrants and their children through overseas experiences. Due to the government’s emphasis on cooperative relations with Southeast Asian countries in recent years, such as the 2016 New Southbound Policy (新南向政策), there have been an increasing number of job opportunities for the new second generation in Southeast Asia.

To be sure, ethnic identity has played a role in the social mobility trajectories of some participants, but the majority of the participants believe that their ethnic identity is unimportant to their lives; their choices of education and careers have not been affected by it at all. For instance, Jun contends that, “ do you perform worse than other people in the job market? Is your salary less than other people because you are a new second generation? I think it’s not the case. So I feel that its influence isn’t that big, everything depends on yourself. Right, it doesn’t matter how your blood is mixed…”.

A plausible reason is that unlike societies such as the United States and some European countries, there is no salient ethnic or racial hierarchy existing in Taiwan, which has enabled children of new immigrants to enjoy as much freedom of choice as the Taiwanese population at large. On the other hand, given the current policy emphasis on the cultural and linguistic heritage of Southeast Asian immigrants and their children as assets, being children of new immigrants sometimes is even an advantage in today’s Taiwan as various government vocational training programs and employment services focus exclusively on this population. Thus, it seems that ethnic identity has played a role in some of the participants’ social mobility trajectories, not because of itself; it is ethnicity-relevant policies that have created an environment in which their ethnic identity is associated with some social benefits and, in turn, shaped the participants’ social mobility trajectories.

5.7. Government Policy

As mentioned above, the government’s recent emphasis on establishing cooperative relations with Southeast Asian countries has significantly increased the demand for workers who are proficient in Southeast Asian languages, which has in turn changed the image of the cultures and languages of new immigrants as a burden to the society into assets (Chang et al. 2021). The New Southbound Policy also encourages higher education institutions to offer relevant courses and programs (Chang et al. 2021), which has made it possible for Shan, Lin, and Sheng to major in Southeast Asian Studies in college. Further, special admissions offered by more and more public and private universities since 2021 have provided children of new immigrants with more opportunities to attend universities of their choice.

In addition to policy programs targeting children of new immigrants, there are other general social and educational policies that have helped the participants navigate their education and career journeys. As shown previously, there are a number of the participants who are from lower-income families. Yet, a good percentage of them managed to graduate from college and have a white-collar job currently. Based on my interviews, an important factor that has helped them overcome this barrier is the social welfare system. Although there are specific scholarships for children of new immigrants, many participants have also received scholarships targeting all students from disadvantaged family backgrounds. For example, throughout her high school years, Hui had to study hard to maintain her status as one of the top 10 students in her class in order to be eligible for a scholarship for students from low-income families, which helped her finish high school. Further, due to her family’s status as a low-income family, they received an allowance from the government every year until she graduated from high school and began to work.

Xuan is another participant who benefitted from the social welfare system. As discussed previously, her father had a stroke that almost took his life when she was in high school. Given that her father was the sole breadwinner at that time, this incident suddenly made her family’s financial situation dreadful. Nevertheless, she was able to seize the opportunity offered by the government by applying for and being accepted by the Fly High Program for Five-Year Junior College Students (五專展翅計畫), a government program targeting junior college students. Students participating in this program do not need to pay any tuition fees in their last two years in junior college and even receive a stipend of TWD 10,000 per month; in exchange, these students have to work for firms that collaborate with the government for two years after graduation. Thanks to this program, she was able to graduate from junior college despite the collapse of her father when she was still in school and works as a hospital nurse now.

Moreover, a number of the participants were able to benefit from the tuition-free policy (高級中等學校免學費方案) and relevant programs. To achieve the goal of providing students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds with more equal educational opportunities, the government implemented the equal tuition policy (齊一公私立高中職學費方案) in 2010 mandating that private high school students whose annual family income was below TWD 900,000 would pay the same amount of tuition as their public high school counterparts (Ministry of Education n.d.). In 2011, the government launched the first phase of the tuition-free policy that made both public and private vocational high schools free for students whose annual family income was below TWD 1.14 million and extended the equal tuition policy to private general high school students whose annual family income was below TWD 1.14 million (Ministry of Education n.d.). Finally, the second phase of the tuition-free policy was put into effect in 2014 (Ministry of Education n.d.). Since the fall semester of 2014, all entering vocational and general high school students whose annual family income is below TWD 1.48 million do not need to pay any tuition fees (Ministry of Education n.d.).

It must be noted that from 2010 to 2019, the average annual family income in Taiwan grew from about TWD 1.12 million to about TWD 1.34 million (Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics 2020). Moreover, in 2020, about 9.25% of families had an annual income between TWD 1.13 million and TWD 1.53 million, whereas about 79.49% of families had an annual income less than TWD 1.12 million (Taiwan Academy of Banking and Finance 2020). This indicates that the free-tuition policy and relevant programs have applied to a vast majority of high school students, including some of the participants. Moreover, according to the Ministry of Education (2016b), about 70% of high school students were covered by the tuition-free policy and relevant programs in the 2015–2016 school year, and it was estimated that in the 2016–2017 school year, the proportion would further increase to 80%. All this demonstrates the role of the social welfare system in the participants’ social mobility trajectories. It may be argued that without these policy programs, some participants would have even struggled to finish high school.

What is more, Ming specifies that he was able to go to college because of the expansion of higher education. According to him, if there had not been this expansion, he would have ended up having merely a high school diploma; this may also be true for some other participants who are younger than him. In 1994, some civil society organizations began to demand the expansion of higher education and the government responded positively, which signaled the beginning of the skyrocketing growth of the numbers of higher education institutions and students (Chou 2008). When Chen Shui-bian from the Democratic Progressive Party was running for presidency in 2000, he promised that every county would have a university; this promise was actualized after he became the president, which further accelerated the expansion of higher education (Chou 2008). While there were 67 universities in 1996, the number grew to 148 in 2007. In addition, the number of college students grew from 314,499 in 1995 (about 1.47% of the total population) to 938,648 (about 4.12% of the total population) in 2005 (Chou 2008). According to Chou (2008), in 2004, there were 1,334,998 students in higher education in total (including graduate, undergraduate, and junior college students), which was about 5.9% of the total population. This percentage is higher than the United States (5.77%) and Japan (3.17%) (Chou 2008). What is more striking is that, in 2021, 95.9% (95,542 out of 99,660) of general high school graduates and 81.8% (61,844 out of 75,586) of vocational high school graduates attended higher education (Executive Yuan 2022a).

As a result, it is a small wonder that except for those who did not go to college due to practical reasons, the vast majority of the participants have at least a bachelor’s degree or are enrolled in college currently. During the interviews, a number of the participants mention that going to college is a must since there are very few well-paid jobs for high school graduates or that as all their peers planned to go to college, they simply followed suit. Therefore, it felt natural for them as high school students to think about what college they would attend rather than whether to go to college or not. Even participants from lower-income families such as Liang, Xian, and Qing managed to graduate from college. The expansion of higher education in Taiwan has indeed made higher education accessible for students from disadvantaged family backgrounds, which may be unthinkable in many societies around the world.

Furthermore, Zhi was able to attend a well-known public technology university because some university departments would offer special admissions for students from the outlying islands of Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu in order to level the playing field by providing them with more opportunities to attend top universities in Taiwan. According to Zhi, students who go to college in his hometown are all admitted through special admissions; as long as they do not perform too badly during the college interview, they would definitely gain admission to the university of their choice. In sum, in addition to policy programs targeting children of new immigrants, there are many more general social and educational policy programs that have played a role in the participants’ social mobility trajectories; without these policy programs, some participants might not have been able to achieve their current socioeconomic status due to their disadvantaged family backgrounds.

6. Discussion and Conclusions

This current study examines the social mobility trajectories of children of new immigrants in early adulthood with a focus on how they interact with micro factors such as family, community, and school as well as government policy, the macro factor, to achieve their socioeconomic status in early adulthood. Drawing on my interviews and online survey, it appears that they do not differ from the general population in terms of higher education attendance rate and annual income. In contrast to my findings, the extant literature on the academic achievement of children of new immigrants in compulsory education shows that there is a significant gap between children of Southeast Asian immigrants and students with two native parents, while children of mainland Chinese immigrants do not perform worse or even outperform students with two native parents (see, e.g., Chin and Yu 2008; Hsieh and Hsieh 2013; Tao et al. 2015). However, given the non-random nature of my samples, the issue of self-selection bias is likely to occur; that is, the majority of the participants in this study may be exceptional cases. Accordingly, future research based on random samples would be necessary if we are to understand whether children of new immigrants truly “catch up” in early adulthood.

6.1. Family Socioeconomic Status Matters but Can Be Moderated by a Range of Factors

Regarding the social mobility process, my interviews nevertheless shed some light by showing that family socioeconomic status may play a crucial role in the participants’ social mobility trajectories. As Bourdieu (1986) observes, the differential academic achievement of children across social classes, to a large extent, is the result of the unequal distribution of cultural capital among different social classes. According to Bourdieu (1984, 1986), the transformation of cultural capital into economic capital can be achieved through institutionalized academic qualifications. A good example is that in most cases, individuals who have a bachelor’s degree receive a higher monthly salary than those who only have a high school diploma. On the other hand, families that possess sufficient economic capital are able to access certain cultural goods and services that exert a positive effect on their children’s education (e.g., books, dictionaries, musical instruments, etc.) (Bourdieu 1986). Both Coleman (1968) and Lareau (2000) also found that middle- and upper-class parents activate their economic and cultural capital to enrich their children’s educational experiences through tutoring, private lessons, and so on. This kind of practice is often not observed in working-class and lower-class families and thus children from higher socioeconomic backgrounds are advantaged since early childhood (Lareau 2000).

In the present study, there are definitely a few parents who are highly educated and have well-paid jobs and stable incomes; they could not only financially support their children’s education but also create a home environment conducive to learning due to their cultural capital. In contrast, there are some parents with lower levels of education and unstable incomes who may be unable to support their children’s education due to their limited economic and cultural capital, as seen in Hui’s and Guo’s cases. These cases seem to confirm Wu and Tsai’s (2014) argument that what truly disadvantages children of new immigrants is their family socioeconomic status; that is, the limited cultural, social, and economic resources available in the family, the result of the lower occupational status and educational attainment of the parents, are the cause of the lower academic achievement of children of new immigrants. However, based on my interviews, there are indeed some parents who were willing to financially support their children by sending them to cram school despite their tough financial situation. Hence, Wu and Tsai’s argument may apply to only some of the participants; parental attitude toward education may be important in this process as well, which is also found in research studies conducted in other immigrant-receiving societies (see, e.g., Modood 2004; Portes and MacLeod 1996; Schneider and Lang 2014).

There are also a number of parents who do not have a high level of education but started their own businesses and managed to provide a stable family financial source. These parents often were willing to financially support their children’s education by sending them to cram school to help them keep up with their peers, which seemed to compensate for their limited cultural capital. Some, such as Shan’s and Lin’s parents, were even willing to send their children to academic-oriented private schools despite the expensive tuition fees. The rapid economic growth and industrial structural change in the 1990s provided these parents with ample opportunities to launch their own small and medium-sized businesses and climb the socioeconomic ladder if they succeeded (Tsay 1999), which in turn enabled them to transform their economic capital into cultural capital that they could invest in their children. Contrary to the findings that this kind of practice is mainly observed among middle- and upper-class parents in Coleman’s (1968) and Lareau’s (2000) studies in the U.S. context, the working-class parents in this study were able to support their children’s education thanks to their stable financial situation. Therefore, it appears that family financial situation exerted a stronger effect on the participants’ education than parental educational attainment and occupational status in these cases. A key factor contributing to the observed difference between the U.S. and Taiwanese cases is the industrial structural change that enabled some working-class parents to accumulate economic capital that can be transformed into cultural capital without a high level of educational and occupational attainment.

As already hinted above, fee-paying cram schooling, or what Stevenson and Baker (1992) term “shadow education,” seemed to have a positive effect on many participants’ education, even though its effect cannot be examined directly here. Shadow education is a common practice and has been found to be effective in East Asian societies (Byun et al. 2018; Entrich 2014; Park et al. 2011; Stevenson and Baker 1992) as well as in East Asian American communities (Byun and Park 2012). Empirical evidence in societies such as Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Singapore shows that students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to use shadow education and thus attend college, which in turn has helped maintain social inequality (Byun et al. 2018; Entrich 2014; Park et al. 2011; Stevenson and Baker 1992). However, the experiences of my participants appear to indicate that this kind of supplementary education played an important role in compensating for their lack of cultural capital that is conducive to education in the family, given their parents’ lower levels of education and/or unfamiliarity with the Taiwanese educational system. Accordingly, shadow education may not always have an effect on perpetuating social inequality, at least in the cases present in this study.

In some participants’ social mobility trajectories, they have met supportive people who have provided them with educational, financial, and emotional support. It is likely that without these supportive people, the participants would not have been able to achiev upward mobility given their disadvantaged family socioeconomic status. Additionally, the Christian Church and NGOs seemed to exert some effect by offering tutoring programs that helped them finish homework and provided a safe place for them to go after school. Some of these organizations also granted scholarships to participants from low-income families to finish compulsory education. The Christian Church even helped some participants improve their psychological well-being and thus helped them focus on pursuing their educational and career goals. These cases underline the importance of social capital in moderating the negative effect of a disadvantaged family background. Through these supportive people and organizations, the participants were able to access resources crucial to their education that were absent at home. In their study of Asian American communities, Lee and Zhou (2014) indicate that there is “a sophisticated system of supplementary education” (p. 8) available in the community, which provides important educational resources such as after-school programs. Further, these resources are accessible to working-class youths in the community as well (Lee and Zhou 2014). Similar findings are also shown in other empirical studies (see, e.g., Bygren and Szulkin 2010; Kim 2002; Kroneberg 2008). Even though there is no such sizable immigrant community in Taiwan currently, to some degree, community-based NGOs, both religious and non-religious, seemed to fulfill this function in a number of the participants’ social mobility journeys.

In addition, several general social and educational policies had a significant impact on the participants’ education and careers. As shown above, the expansion of higher education, the tuition-free policy, the Fly High Program for Five-Year Junior College Students, and special admissions for students from the outlying islands all have benefitted the participants to some extent. Because of these policies, all the participants were able to finish high school, and the vast majority of them have attended or are attending higher education. Moreover, some of the participants’ families were classified as low-income families and thus were able to receive a monthly allowance from the government, which nevertheless eased some of the family’s financial burden. For the participants, they were able to receive a government scholarship per semester if they maintained a good academic record. As can be seen, the social welfare system certainly has had a role in the participants’ social mobility trajectories. Based on my findings, it seems that children of new immigrants are not ignored by the government and are served adequately in general.

6.2. Ethnic Identity Is Irrelevant in General but Sometimes Plays a Role Due to Relevant Policy

My interviews reveal that ethnic identity does not play a determinant role in the social mobility trajectories of the participants. This finding differs from what has been found in many immigrant-receiving societies, such as the United States and some European countries, in which ethnic identity exerts a nontrivial effect on both immigrants and their children, particularly those from non-white backgrounds (see, e.g., Arce et al. 1987; Behtoui 2013; Kalbach et al. 2002; Panico and Nazroo 2011; Silberman et al. 2007; Tran et al. 2019). A plausible reason is that in addition to the absence of sizable immigrant communities, there is no clear ethnic or racial hierarchy in Taiwan and, thus, children of new immigrants typically enjoy the same degree of freedom of choice as the general population. Certainly, there was a clear concentration of mainlanders in the public sector when mainlander refugees first came to Taiwan with the Nationalist government following its defeat in the Chinese Civil War in 1949; however, there is no clear segmentation in the Taiwanese labor market along ethnic lines at present, given the rapid expansion of compulsory education and economic growth since the 1960s that have made formal education more affordable to lower-income families and gradually wiped out mainlanders’ advantage (Chung and Chen 2011; Su and Yu 2007; Wu 2013).

Another crucial factor may be phenotype. The majority of the participants report that their appearance and linguistic skills are indistinguishable from people whose parents are both Taiwanese. In addition, my survey demonstrates that 87.32% (62 out of 71) of the respondents answer “Taiwanese” to the question “In general, when people first meet you, what do they think your ethnic background is?” This may not be surprising as the majority of them have a native parent, although there are some participants whose parents are both new immigrants and at least one of the parents is of Han Chinese ancestry, which makes them physically indistinguishable from the ethnic majority. Therefore, it is likely that they can pass easily as Taiwanese as their appearance matches this identity label. In fact, none of the participants indicate that they have experienced discrimination in the labor market. This differs from what is found in empirical studies conducted in Western contexts that the immigrant second generation experienced discrimination in the labor market due to their physical or religious visibility (see, e.g., Arce et al. 1987; Silberman et al. 2007; Tran et al. 2019). Being ethnically invisible thus seems to contribute to the insignificance of ethnic identity in the social mobility trajectories of the participants. It may be argued that, given Taiwan’s lack of a rigid ethnic hierarchy and sizable immigrant communities and the ethnic invisibility of the participants, the kind of segmented assimilation Portes and Zhou (1993) observe among the immigrant second generation in the United States is not seen among the participants.

That ethnic identity has had a role in the social mobility trajectories of the participants has been mainly made possible by government policy. In the past decades, the government has implemented policy programs that have aimed to help children of new immigrants improve their academic performance by offering after-school tutoring programs and remedial Mandarin Chinese courses at school. There are also scholarships available to these students if they are from low-income families. In recent years, the government has launched policy programs such as the New Southbound Policy that have greatly increased the demand for workers who are proficient in Southeast Asian languages (Chang et al. 2021). Given this emphasis on Southeast Asian languages and cultures, more and more higher education institutions have begun to offer relevant courses and programs (Chang et al. 2021). The offering of Southeast Asian Studies programs and Southeast Asian language courses has made some participants interested in their immigrant heritage and allowed them to choose a relevant career path. For some other participants, they were able to gain admission to the university of their choice through special admissions for children of new immigrants.

This finding provides some evidence supporting the argument that despite being an “imagined” name or label, ethnic identity can have real social consequences (Jenkins 2008), given that “people orient their lives and actions in terms of it” (Jenkins 2000, p. 10). It should be noted that these social consequences are “situationally contingent”; that is, they may change across place and time (Jenkins 2008, p. 49). As demonstrated in Jie’s case, his Vietnamese heritage had no social consequence at all for him during childhood since issues related to new immigrants and their children were not yet recognized by the government and did not exist in the public discourse. However, the university he attended began to offer Vietnamese courses in his freshman year, which triggered his interest in the language that he never felt interested to learn during childhood. Teaching the Vietnamese language had even become his career in early adulthood. It is clear that ethnic identity is consequential in his early adulthood thanks to the government’s growing emphasis on Southeast Asian languages and cultures. Because increasing social benefits began to be associated with the “children of new immigrants” identity in recent decades, some of the participants seem to strategically claim this identity that brings “personal or collective political or economic advantage” (Nagel 1994, p. 159) to them in certain situations.

As mentioned earlier, an increasingly friendly environment may have also enabled the participants to strategically utilize their ethnic identity to gain social benefits. Some participating social workers state that their organizations have actively encouraged new immigrants to participate in community development projects; this kind of “connecting work” (Wise and Velayutham 2014) has helped both new immigrants and other residents better know each other and thus reducing incidents of discrimination. The social workers further point out that the fact of frequent contact with new immigrants and their children from diverse backgrounds in the community over years has contributed to the improvement of other residents’ attitudes toward them, which is also shown in other empirical studies (Chen and Wu 2017; Yi and Chang 2006). Several participants also report that their neighbors are friendly to their families and some even share food and daily necessities with them, or “gifts of care” in the words of Wise and Velayutham (2014). This finding is in line with Wessendorf’s (2014) idea of “commonplace diversity”; that is, by experiencing diversity on a daily basis, diversity has become nothing special, and residents are able to engage in positive interactions across social categories in public and semi-public spaces while refraining from deeper engagement to avoid conflict and tension.

Moreover, being sponsored by the government, several NGOs have frequently held multicultural events and workshops that have aimed to reduce negative stereotypes of new-immigrant families held by the general public. Similar practices supported by the government are observed in Western contexts where diversity within the population is increasing as well (Vertovec 2010). Yet, relevant policy programs seem to be more successful in Taiwan as the kind of backlashes witnessed in Western contexts (Vertovec 2010) have not occurred so far. In addition, many of the participating schoolteachers indicate that their schools hold multicultural events such as inviting new immigrants to share their cultures in the classroom and food festivals; some schools also offer Southeast Asian language courses to both children of new immigrants and non-immigrants. Plus, the schoolteachers, the social workers, and some participants all contend that ethnic discrimination has been decreasing in recent years, at least at a superficial level. In fact, all the participants tell me that they do not reject or hide their immigrant heritage, including those who once felt bad about it due to negative experiences in childhood. Overall, government policy targeting both new immigrants and their children and the general public may have helped diminish discrimination and prejudice against new immigrants and their children in recent years, which in turn has enabled the participants to develop a more positive sense of their immigrant heritage and sometimes strategically use it to gain social benefits.

In sum, the findings can be visualized, as shown in Figure 1. The solid lines indicate a direct relationship and the dashed lines denote a moderating relationship. Family socioeconomic status certainly has a great impact on educational and occupational outcomes. Nonetheless, there are several factors that can moderate the effect of family socioeconomic status if they are available to the individual and the individual makes use of them in the social mobility trajectory. For individuals from families with a stable financial situation, these moderating factors may play a trivial role in this process since they are already at an advantage from an early age. On the other hand, for individuals from a disadvantaged socioeconomic background, they may overcome barriers posed by their family background to achieve upward mobility utilizing moderators that are available to them. It is noteworthy that the effect of ethnic identity is mainly given by government policy that provides certain benefits for children of new immigrants and thus renders ethnic identity consequential in certain contexts.

Some of the moderators presented in the present study may be applicable across societies (e.g., parental attitude toward education, NGOs), while others may be context-specific (e.g., ethnicity-relevant policy). The specific social context and the composition of new-immigrant families in Taiwan seem to contribute to the distinct social mobility trajectories of the participants that have some characteristics differing from what has been observed among the immigrant second generation in Western contexts. Given the insignificance of ethnic identity, the government’s recent focus on Southeast Asian languages and cultures, and a variety of policy programs targeting children of new immigrants, it may be argued that the participants have had more choices in their social mobility journey, which is exemplified by the diverse social mobility paths they have followed in early adulthood.

This study can contribute to the literature on the immigrant second generation by showing that ethnic identity may be a rather trivial factor in some contexts, given the characteristics of a particular context and the immigrant second generation. As Fox and Jones (2013) put it, ethnic identity is “neither essential traits nor inevitable conditions; rather, it is the variable and contingent outcome of assorted practices that make them meaningful in some contexts but render them invisible and irrelevant in others” (p. 394). Accordingly, if we overstress the importance of ethnic identity in difference-making, it is likely that “alternative and possibly more relevant explanations for social phenomena” under study are overlooked (Slootman 2018, p. 26). It is clear in the cases examined in the current study that what distinguishes the participants from the immigrant second generation in Western contexts is the insignificant role of ethnic identity in their social mobility trajectories in general. Therefore, ethnic identity is taken into account only in cases in which it plays a role.

A final caveat is that despite their intended positive outcomes, policy programs targeting children of new immigrants seem to be based on the assumption that they are a disadvantaged population. While some relevant programs require applicants to be both children of new immigrants and from a disadvantaged background, others, such as special admissions to college, are available to all children of new immigrants. This seems to reflect the more unconscious biases against new immigrants and their children held by the general public. For instance, Jie reports that he has heard some principals and other school administrators, although in an attempt to reduce ethnic prejudice, telling students that they should visit Southeast Asian countries to see that they were actually “not that poor.” Han, whose father is Taiwanese, also recalls that as a student at a top university, when she met her paternal relatives, they would ask whether she was doing okay, which seemed to imply to her that she would struggle academically because she is a child of a Vietnamese mother. Indeed, relevant policy programs have helped some participants achieve upward mobility; however, there are also participants not from a disadvantaged background who have gained extra benefits simply based on their ethnic background. Hence, policy programs that aim to achieve social equity may need to be need-based instead of being based simply on social categories in order to truly achieve their goal and avoid stereotyping people classified into certain categories as inherently disadvantaged.