Immigration and Economic Mobility in America

There are many opportunities in America that can improve one’s wealth and power, thus leading to the mass amount of immigrants coming to American. Most immigrants that come to American usually are categorized as the lower class immigrants, but they take any opportunities to improve their economic status. In an article by Howard P. Chudacoff, it states “immigrants generally chose upward paths that led from manual labor into small proprietorships” (Chudacoff 1982: 104). This explains the reason why immigrants choose to come and stay in America. They start out small as laborers then over time they will work to own a small business. Even though immigrants gets to grow to move from the lower class to the middle class, the natives will be always

Also gender is an important factor in America social class. Men will be affected differently and women will be affected differently by the class system. In the class system there is inequality between genders and that greatly affects the social mobility of the genders. Men usually hold more important jobs in businesses while women will work under them. For instance in a article by Richard Hogan, it conveys, “How gender relations within the family are reproduced (emulated), at work, in class relations between secretaries and their bosses.” (Hogan 2001: 68). In families the female is usually taking care of the house, children, etc., while the male has a job and earning money. In this example it explains that the boss has a job and is earning money, while the secretary is taking care of the bosses work. This limits the social mobility of females since they always have to work under someone in most cases and they will earn less money than males. Women also take their husband’s social class position when they are married to them. Hogan explains, “Firstly women have been subsumed into class analysis through being identified with the household unit defined by the male partner 's social class position.” (Hogan 2001: 147). This displays that a female has no identity of her own since they take their husband’s social class position it is linked to them. Yet, females still have some kind social class and some social mobility in the class