Peripherization of immigrant professionals: Korean physicians in the United States

Using data on the characteristics of 1043 physicians who graduated from a medical school in Korea, the authors analyze the effects of immigrant status, gender, and year of graduation on their choice of medical practice specialty. The specialty areas are categorized into 2 groups, "core" and "periphery," on the basis of the reported median income of practitioners in each specialty. The results of log-linear model analyses indicate that female physicians are more likely to immigrate to the United States than male physicians, although the general trend of immigration does not notably change over time. In the main equation, immigration status shows a significant peripheral effect as immigrant physicians are much more likely to practice in peripheral areas than their home-staying counterparts. Gender status is also found to have a significant peripheral effect. When these Korean immigrant physicians are compared with the US-educated physicians in regard to their areas of practice, the same pattern of peripherization is observed among the immigrants. The findings suggest that, despite their secular image of "success," immigrant professionals in the United States carry on the same kind of marginal economic activities within the professional labor market as unskilled immigrant workers do within the nonprofessional labor market.