The main objective of this paper is to use the Iranian case to test three hypotheses about the demographic, religious, and socioeconomic differences between immigrants and political refugees or exiles, which are commonly found in the literature. These hypotheses are tested by using data from the 1980 U.S. Census Public Use Microdata Sample for the 1975-80 and the pre-1975 Iranian immigrant cohorts. Our first hypothesis is that the 1975-80 immigrants include a higher proportion of religious minorities than the pre-1975 immigrants. Our second hypothesis is that the 1975-1980 cohort, composed of a large number of refugees, is much more balanced with respect to age and sex distribution than the pre-1975 cohort. The third hypothesis is that Iranians who arrived in 1975-80 had a higher socioeconomic achievement than those who came before that date. The analysis of data from the 1980 U.S. Census on immigration cohorts is preceded by a brief review of trends and types of Iranian immigration to the United States as documented by tabulations from the INS. While these tabulations pertain only to the United States, they also reflect immigration trends to Los Angeles, since this metropolitan area is the favored destination of Iranian immigrants to the United States.

Diversity is one of the major current themes in the field of immigrant and ethnic studies. Scholars are increasingly attentive to national-origin diversity among groups such as Hispanics in the United States (Portes and Truelove 1987;Nelson and Tienda 1985). They argue that differences in group characteristics, migration histories, and reception contexts affect the adaptation of immigrant groups. In some cases, however, ethnic diversity does not stop at the nationality level,and may take different forms. For instance, Iranians consist of ethno-religious subgroups (Armenians, Bahais, Jews, and Muslims), whereas Vietnamese include ethnic Chinese from Vietnam (Bozorgmehr 1990; Desbarats 1986; Sabagh et al. 1989). Armenians have co-ethnic counterparts of different national origins such as Iran, Lebanon, or the Soviet Union. The aim of this paper is document internal diversity among Armenians and thus demonstrate the need for taking into account subethnicity among Armenians.

This paper reports on an effort designed to search for the glass ceiling, through a study of the career trajectories of native white and Asian immigrant engineers. Using data drawn from a survey of the M.S. graduates of the engineering school at "Southern California U," we find that some form of labor market segmentation, so common at lower levels of the economy, is also restricting the mobility of highly skilled foreign-born engineers. Our key finding shows that immigrants receive a significantly lower return to experience than do their native-born counterparts. Consequently, the immigrant's career takes a distinctively different shape after 17 years of experience, native-born engineers surpass their immigrant counterparts, enjoying continuous earnings growth.