Immigrant paradox

The immigrant paradox is that recent immigrants often outperform more established immigrants and non-immigrants on a number of health-, education-, and conduct- or crime-related outcomes, despite the numerous barriers they face to successful social integration. The immigrant paradox is that recent immigrants often outperform more established immigrants and non-immigrants on a number of health-, education-, and conduct- or crime-related outcomes, despite the numerous barriers they face to successful social integration. According to the UN, the number of first-generation immigrants worldwide is 244 million. These large-scale population changes worldwide have led many scholars, across fields, to study the acculturation and adjustment of immigrants to their new homes. Specifically, researchers have examined immigrant experiences as they pertain to educational attainment, mental and physical health, and conduct/crime. Researchers have tried to understand why later generations seem to perform less well than their forebears. They have found that it can be explained by non-optimal methodology and differences in the way generations are modified by the host culture. Immigrants face many challenges as a result of migration, stemming from the fact that the nations and communities they settle in are culturally unfamiliar. As a result, they find themselves in an unwelcoming environment lacking in the infrastructure necessary to ensure a simple transition. Additionally, because general attitudes of the host society are often hostile and xenophobic, immigrants are doubly vulnerable. Discrimination and prejudice are common and dictate daily experiences with individuals and organizations within the host society. For example, although cultural sensitivity training is increasingly a required component of medical education, immigrants have historically faced and continue to face discrimination in the health care system. An added barrier to equitable access to health care comes as a result of many immigrants' limited English proficiency. Many health care facilities have inadequate interpretation services, and culturally sensitive health care providers are also scarce. What's more, many immigrants are uninsured, making the financial burdens of adequate health care insurmountable.   Many immigrants also settle in de facto segregated, low-income neighborhoods and ethnic enclaves, especially during periods of high immigration. Although the benefits of living in such communities include increased social support, positive in-group relations, and the virtual elimination of cultural and language barriers in daily interaction, often such neighborhoods are targets of institutional violence, such as stop and frisk. Further, due to public education funding policies in the United States, funds are often allocated to schools based on neighborhood property taxes. As a result, many immigrant children attend schools that are understaffed, underfunded, and lacking in resources in comparison to the schools of their more affluent peers. This is known as the opportunity gap, by which low-income and marginalized groups have disproportionately low access to the opportunities and conveniences afforded to societally privileged groups, resulting in group-wide disparities in academic achievement, wages, and political power. In direct relation to these obstacles, immigrants also face challenges in the workplace, including poor and dangerous working conditions, unemployment, and the employment of highly skilled individuals in low-skill jobs. To compound all of these issues, the burden of acculturation is an added stressor. Navigating the divide between the heritage culture and the culture of the new society is difficult, as the traditions, beliefs, and norms of these two cultures are often in direct conflict. This challenge is only compounded by the other obstacles immigrants are faced with, and has deleterious consequences for mental health, particularly because many migrants and refugees are already susceptible to elevated levels of psychopathology, due to the trauma associated with interpersonal conflict, acculturative stress and/or political unrest in their countries of origin.