Asian American education and income level chart

[SInNYC]

In other news, Taiwanese should stop being pharmacists, and start being investment bankers in order to catch up with the much richer but slightly less educated Indians.

While its plausible that Indians are indeed richer, the figure is household income and it wouldnt surprise me if it was due to family issues. Indians have very low divorce rates even in the US, which leads to higher household income.

Also, I've seen other stats that Indians are one of the few immigrant groups that get poorer in the next generation. The question of course is whether this is because the first generation does so well that they can only go down (since they dont have the capital of rich whites), or its just a statistical quirk due to the second generation being younger.

[SInNYC]

In other news, Taiwanese should stop being pharmacists, and start being investment bankers in order to catch up with the much richer but slightly less educated Indians.

While its plausible that Indians are indeed richer, the figure is household income and it wouldnt surprise me if it was due to family issues. Indians have very low divorce rates even in the US, which leads to higher household income.

Also, I've seen other stats that Indians are one of the few immigrant groups that get poorer in the next generation. The question of course is whether this is because the first generation does so well that they can only go down (since they dont have the capital of rich whites), or its just a statistical quirk due to the second generation being younger.

Genuinely something that is very interesting. Source?

I'd think it's mainly the second reason due to the median age of a U.S.-born Asian Indian American being literally 13 years old. It also could be a mixture of the first reason too especially as the younger generation in the United States tends to not be very well-off due to a multitude of factors.

No source unfortunately since its something I saw about 20 years back (so maybe its different now). But it was only for adults - there was much discussion about it in Asian groups back then.

[SInNYC]

In other news, Taiwanese should stop being pharmacists, and start being investment bankers in order to catch up with the much richer but slightly less educated Indians.

While its plausible that Indians are indeed richer, the figure is household income and it wouldnt surprise me if it was due to family issues. Indians have very low divorce rates even in the US, which leads to higher household income.

Also, I've seen other stats that Indians are one of the few immigrant groups that get poorer in the next generation. The question of course is whether this is because the first generation does so well that they can only go down (since they dont have the capital of rich whites), or its just a statistical quirk due to the second generation being younger.

Genuinely something that is very interesting. Source?

I'd think it's mainly the second reason due to the median age of a U.S.-born Asian Indian American being literally 13 years old. It also could be a mixture of the first reason too especially as the younger generation in the United States tends to not be very well-off due to a multitude of factors.

No source unfortunately since its something I saw about 20 years back (so maybe its different now). But it was only for adults - there was much discussion about it in Asian groups back then.

NYT this week had an article that included wealth of various Asian groups, and while it doesnt say exactly what I alluded to above, it does correlate with it: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/08/21/us/asians-census-us.html
If you scroll down to the graphic titled "Median household income of Asian groups, by U.S. citizenship status", US born Indians are at about 115K while naturalized Indians are at about 140K. The only other named group in that graphic is Koreans, for who its about 95K-75K going the other direction.

Same caveats as above still apply though.

[SInNYC]

Compared to other Asians, many Vietnamese are in the rural south, which would explain higher home ownership rates (and also lower education levels). Think fishermen in the bayou. Also, the second wave of Vietnamese immigrants was much less educated than the first wave, though their kids seem to be getting educated.

Most of the Bangladeshi I run across are working class (I even run across a homeless one who lives in a park near me). They work in Indian restaurants, etc., especially so in NYC, so most Americans think they are Indian.