Rethinking the Hispanic Paradox: The Mortality Experience of Mexican Immigrants in Traditional Gateways and New Destinations

Previous research suggests that favorable health outcomes among Mexican immigrants reflect high levels of social support in enclave communities with high co‐ethnic density. This study examines the mortality outcomes of Mexican immigrants in the United States in traditional gateways versus new and minor destinations. Mexican immigrants in new and minor destinations have a significant survival advantage over those in traditional gateways, reflecting less established communities in new destinations. This finding casts doubt on the protective effects of enclaves, since non‐traditional destinations have less established immigrant communities. Future research should reevaluate the relationship between community ethnic composition, social support, and immigrant health.     

Self‐Employed Mexican Immigrants Residing along the U.S.‐Mexico Border: The Earnings Effect of Working in the U.S. versus Mexico1

This study uses U.S. census data from the year 2000 to analyze the earnings of Mexican immigrants along the U.S.‐Mexico border while accounting for the location in which they work. The empirical results indicate that Mexican entrepreneurs who live in U.S.‐border cities but primarily operate in Mexico accrue a significant earnings premium over their entrepreneurial and salaried counterparts working on the U.S. side of the border, even after controlling for differences in observable characteristics. This work‐location earnings gap widens when focusing on Mexican business owners lacking U.S. citizenship. It follows that policies which reduce trade and labor flows across the U.S.‐Mexico border may inadvertently dampen the entrepreneurial activities of foreign‐born residents in U.S.‐border cities.     

Measures of Assimilation in the Marriage Market: Mexican Americans 1970–1990

In 1965 the United States rewrote its immigration laws, and immigration increased sharply as a result. The immigrants and the children of immigrants from the post‐1965 period are slowly becoming more influential in U.S. life; the largest of these groups are the Mexican immigrants and the Mexican Americans. The rapid growth of Hispanic and Asian populations in the United States has led to a renewed interest in the question of assimilation; that is, will the new groups assimilate, and if so how long will it take? Will they become part of White America? Will some groups assimilate into the Black‐dominated urban underclass (a process Portes called segmented assimilation)? Will some groups remain permanently separate and socially isolated? In this article, I examine the behavior of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants in the U.S. marriage market, using census data from 1970, 1980, and 1990. The findings are that Mexican Americans are assimilating with non‐Hispanic Whites over time, and the evidence tends to reject the segmented assimilation hypothesis. The interplay between intermarriage and endogamy is studied with log linear models; some variations by geography and U.S. nativity are noted.     

The Great Recession and the Allure of New Immigrant Destinations in the United States

In the 1990s, the immigrant population in the United States dispersed to non‐traditional settlement locations (what have become known as “new immigrant destinations”). This paper examines whether the allure of new destinations persisted in the 2000s with a particular focus on the internal migration of the foreign‐born during the recent deep recessionary period and its aftermath. Three specific questions motivate the analysis. First, are immigrants, much like the U.S.‐born population, becoming less migratory within the country over time? Second, is immigrant dispersal from traditional gateways via internal migration continuing despite considerable economic contraction in many new destination metropolitan areas? Third, is immigration from aboard a substitute for what appears to be declining immigrant internal migration to new destinations? The findings reveal a close correlation between the declining internal migration propensity of the U.S.‐born and immigrants in the last two decades. We also observe parallels between the geographies of migration of native‐ and foreign‐born populations with both groups moving to similar metropolitan areas in the 1990s. This redistributive association, however, weakened in the subsequent decade as new destination metropolitan areas lost their appeal for both groups, especially immigrants. There is no evidence to suggest that immigration from abroad is substituting for the decline in immigrant redistribution through internal migration to new destinations. Across destination types, the relationship between immigration from abroad and the internal migration of the foreign‐born remained the same during and after the Great Recession as in the period immediately before it.     

Pathways to El Norte: origins, destinations, and characteristics of Mexican migrants to the United States

The geography Mexican migration to the U.S. has experienced deep transformations in both its origin composition and the destinations chosen by migrants. To date, however, we know little about how shifting migrant origins and destinations may be linked to each another geographically and, ultimately, structurally as relatively similar brands of economic restructuring have been posited to drive the shifts in origins and destinations. In this paper, we describe how old and new migrant networks have combined to fuel the well-documented geographic expansion of Mexican migration. We use data from the 2006 Mexican National Survey of Population Dynamics, a nationally representative survey that for the first time collected information on U.S. state of destination for all household members who had been to the U.S. during the 5 years prior to the survey. We find that the growth in immigration to southern and eastern states is disproportionately fueled by undocumented migration from non-traditional origin regions located in Central and Southeastern Mexico and from rural areas in particular. We argue that economic restructuring in the U.S. and Mexico had profound consequences not only for the magnitude but also for the geography of Mexican migration, opening up new region-to-region flows.     

Hearth and Home: The Living Arrangements of Mexican Immigrants and U.S.-Born Mexican Americans

Utilizing data from the nationally representative, 1990 Panel Study of Income Dynamics—Latino Sample, this paper examines the living arrangements of Mexican heritage persons in the U.S., comparing immigrants to U.S. natives. Mexican immigrants are most likely to live with extended kin and unrelated persons upon recent arrival to the U.S. As time in the U.S. increases, such arrangements become less common. Three competing explanations for this pattern are addressed. While economic resources and life course stages are clearly linked to household formation for immigrants and U.S. natives, the findings indicate limited support for an acculturation hypothesis.     

Earnings mobility of first and "1.5" generation Mexican-origin women and men: a comparison with U.S.-born Mexican-Americans and non-Hispanic whites

"This study addresses the following questions: Are Mexican immigrants closing the earnings gap with greater time in the United States, compared to U.S.-born Mexican Americans and non-Hispanic whites? What factors are most important in determining their earnings? How are earnings determinants different for women versus men, and those who came to the United States as children, versus those who came as adults and those born in the United States?... With greater time in the United States, male immigrants achieve average earnings comparable to U.S.-born Mexican Americans, but not to non-Hispanic whites, controlling for human capital variables. With greater time in the United States, female immigrants approach the number of hours of paid work of U.S.-born women, but not the earnings received per hour. Gains in earnings associated with age, time in the United States, and English proficiency differ by gender, reflecting structural differences in the labor market."     

Why Did House Members Vote for H.R. 4437?1

This article examines why members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted for H.R. 4437, the controversial 2005 bill to construct a 700‐mile immigration barrier along the U.S.‐Mexican border and to criminalize illegal presence and aid to undocumented immigrants. Logit analysis suggests that being a first‐term House member or a Republican and representing a district that was in the South or the West or heavily blue‐collar substantially boosted the odds of supporting H.R. 4437. If a member's district was disproportionately Asian, Latino, or, especially, African American, he or she was instead more likely to oppose the measure.     

Occupational Channels for Mexican Migration: New Destination Formation in a Binational Context

In the 1990s, Mexican immigration dispersed spatially, leading to the emergence of many “new destinations,” in nonmetropolitan areas of the United States. Previous studies constrain the scope of the analysis to the United States, limiting our understanding of how new destinations are formed. We place new destination formation into a binational context and emphasize the role of supply‐side immigration dynamics. We argue that occupations in Mexico provide ready‐made paths, or “channels,” for economic incorporation into the United States and that these channels underlie the formation of many new destinations. Using a unique data set on Mexican migration, we estimate a multivariate model that tests for the presence of occupational channels linking analogous sectors of the U.S. and Mexican economies, focusing especially on the food‐processing sector. The results demonstrate that Mexican migration is strongly channeled along occupational lines. There are occupational channels linking each of the major economic sectors in Mexico and the United States, but the effect of channeling is particularly strong in the food‐processing sector. By empirically identifying the existence of occupational channels, this study uncovers a key explanation of new destination formation in many nonmetropolitan areas.     

Paths to Mobility: The Mexican Second Generation at Work in a New Destination

Prior studies have shown that children of Mexican immigrants face structural challenges that threaten to obstruct their economic success in young adulthood. Drawing on 58 interviews with upwardly mobile young adult children of Mexican immigrants in a new immigrant destination in the U.S. South, I examine how a group of second‐generation Mexicans has made occupational gains during their early employment careers. They activated three resources in mobility‐promoting ways given the demographic, economic, and social characteristics of their community. The resources include parental support, advice and guidance from extrafamilial mentors, and bilingualism in English and Spanish.     

Racialized Labour Market Incorporation? African Immigrants and the Role of Education‐Occupation Mismatch in Earnings

U.S. immigration policy debates increasingly center on attracting highly‐skilled immigrants. African immigrants, in particular, exhibit high levels of over‐education. But questions remain about whether African immigrants’ skills are appropriately utilized in the U.S. labour market. This paper uses U.S. Census and American Community Survey data to determine whether Africans’ over‐education leads to a corresponding wage disadvantage. I also investigate whether search and match, imperfect transferability, or queuing theory describes African immigrants’ wage outcomes. I find that, while African and Asian immigrants have similarly high rates of college education and over‐education, Africans experience significantly larger wage disadvantages due to over‐education. African immigrants’ low wages are closer to that of U.S. and Caribbean‐born blacks indicating that queuing theory describes their wage disadvantage. These findings suggest the need for policy addressing racial disparities in the labour market rather than new immigration policy.     

Could “Acculturation” Effects Be Explained by Latent Health Disadvantages Among Mexican Immigrants?

This paper tests portions of a new theory of immigrant health by focusing exclusively on latent biomarkers of future health risks. Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III, 1988–1994 – we uncover the typically observed immigrant health advantage among recent immigrants that diminishes among long‐term immigrants. In addition, we observe worse health among U.S.‐born Mexican Americans relative to non‐Hispanic Whites. Finally, although our theory suggests that recent immigrants may have latent health risks due to disadvantaged childhood experiences, we do not find evidence in support of this theory.     

Moving Up in Rural America: Economic Attainment of Nonmetro Latino Immigrants

Rapid Hispanic population growth represents a pronounced demographic transformation in many nonmetropolitan counties, particularly since 1990. Its considerable public policy implications stem largely from high proportions of new foreign‐born residents. Despite the pressing need for information on new immigrants in nonmetro counties and a bourgeoning scholarship on new rural destinations, few quantitative analyses have measured systematically the social and economic well‐being of Latino immigrants. This study analyzes the importance of place for economic well‐being, an important public policy issue related to rural Hispanic population growth. We consider four measures of economic mobility: full‐time, year‐round employment; home ownership; poverty status; and income exceeding the median national income. We conduct this analysis for 2000 and 2006–2007 to capture two salient periods of nonmetro Hispanic population growth, using a typology that distinguishes among nonmetropolitan areas by the categories of “traditional” immigrant destinations concentrated in the Southwest and Northwest, “new” immigrant destinations to capture recent and rapid Hispanic population growth in the Midwest and Southeast, and “all other” rural destinations as a reference category representing more typical nonmetro population trends. We also compare our results to those for metropolitan destinations. We find that place type matters little for stable employment but more so for wealth accumulation and income security and mobility. Compared with urban Latino immigrants, rural Latino immigrants exhibit higher rates of homeownership as well as greater likelihoods of falling into poverty and lower likelihoods of earning a measure of U.S. median income. From 2000 to 2006–2007, rural‐urban differences deteriorated slightly in favor of urban areas. We conclude by discussing implications of these findings and those of addressing rural immigrant economic well‐being more generally.     

Divorce among European and Mexican Immigrants in the U.S

Review of Economics of the Household - This paper analyzes the status of being currently divorced among European and Mexican immigrants in the U.S., among themselves and in comparison to the native...     

Age‐at‐Arrival’s Effects on Asian Immigrants’ Socioeconomic Outcomes in Canada and the U.S.1

Age‐at‐arrival is a key predictor of many immigrant outcomes, but discussion continues over how to best measure and study its effects. This research replicates and extends a pioneering study by Myers, Gao, and Emeka [International Migration Review (2009) 43:205–229] on age‐at‐arrival effects among Mexican immigrants in the U.S. to see if similar results hold for other immigrant groups and in other countries. We examine data from the 2000 U.S. census and 2006 American Community Survey, and 1991, 2001, and 2006 Canadian censuses to assess several measures of age‐at‐arrival effects on Asian immigrants’ socioeconomic outcomes. We confirm several of Myers et al.’s key findings, including the absence of clear breakpoints in age‐at‐arrival effects for all outcomes and the superiority of continuous measures of age‐at‐arrival. Additional analysis reveals different age‐at‐arrival effects by gender and Asian ethnicity. We suggest guidelines, supplementing those offered by Myers et al., for measuring and studying age‐at‐arrival’s effects on immigrant outcomes.     

Nativity,Duration of Residence,and the Health of Hispanic Adults in the United States1

This article examines subgroup differences in the health status of Hispanic adults in comparison to non‐Hispanic whites and non‐Hispanic blacks. We pay particular attention to the influences of nativity and duration of residence in the United States. Data are pooled from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) for 1989–94. Puerto Ricans exhibited the worst health outcomes of any group (including whites and blacks) for each of the three health measures. Persons of Central/South American origin exhibited the most favorable outcomes for activity limitations and bed sick days, advantages that were eliminated when controlled for nativity/duration. For two of the three health status variables, Mexican Americans were very similar to non‐Hispanic whites in baseline models and were more favorable than non‐Hispanic whites once socio‐economic factors were controlled; this was not the case, however, for self‐reported overall health. Immigration also helped to explain the relatively positive outcomes among Central/South American origin individuals, Cubans, and Mexican Americans. For most Hispanic groups (as well as non‐Hispanic whites and non‐Hispanic blacks), immigrants reported better health than the U.S. born, which is consistent with a selectivity hypothesis of immigrant health. In addition, this advantage tended to be significantly smaller among immigrants with ten or more years' duration in the United States. Although the latter finding is consistent with the negative acculturation hypothesis, alternative interpretations, including the generally more limited access of immigrants to the formal health care system, are suggested.     

Homeownership Among Latin American Immigrants in New Destinations

One of the most profound demographic changes in the United States over the past several decades is the redistribution of immigrants from Latin America to new destinations. However, little attention has been paid to differences in homeownership by national origin and destination type among this population. This is surprising because homeownership is a most significant investment and component of wealth for most residents. Using the American Community Survey to examine the likelihood of owning a home among immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, and Guatemala, the main objective of this research was to investigate how homeownership among the three immigrant groups intersects with destination type. The results indicate that these immigrants have significantly lower rates of homeownership in new destinations than in established settlement areas after controlling for a host of individual and metropolitan‐level characteristics. At the same time, the role of destination is not the same for all groups. Guatemalans have the lowest levels of homeownership overall, but Mexican immigrants are the least likely to own a home in new destinations. These findings are further explored and discussed.     

U.S. Immigration Policy at a Crossroads: Should the U.S. Continue Its Family‐Friendly Policy?

An ongoing debate is whether the U.S. should continue its family‐based admission system, which favors visas for family members of U.S. citizens and residents, or adopt a more skills‐based system, replacing family visas with employment‐based visas. In many ways, this is a false dichotomy: family‐friendly policies attract highly‐skilled immigrants regardless of their own visa path, and there are not strong reasons why a loosening of restrictions on employment migrants need be accompanied by new restrictions on family‐based immigration. Moreover, it is misleading to think that only employment‐based immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy. Recent immigrants, who have mostly entered via kinship ties, are economically productive, a fact hidden by a flawed methodology that underlies most economic analyses of immigrant economic assimilation.     

Geographic Mobility and Spatial Assimilation among U. S. Latino Immigrants1

Although the spatial assimilation of immigrants to the United States has important implications for social theory and social policy, few studies have explored the atterns and determinants of interneighborhood geographic mobility that lead to immigrants’residential proximity to the white, non‐Hispanic majority. We explore this issue by merging data from three different sources ‐ the Latino National Political Survey, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and tract‐level census data ‐ to begin unraveling causal relationships among indicators of socioeconomic, social, cultural, segmented, and spatial assimilation. Our longitudinal analysis of 700 Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban immigrants followed from 1990 to 1995 finds broad support for hypotheses derived from the classical account of minority assimilation. High income, English language use, and embeddedness in Anglo social contexts increase Latino immigrants’geographic mobility into Anglo neighborhoods. U. S. citizenship and years spent in the United Stares are ppsidvely associated with geographic mobility into more Anglo neighbor oods, and coethnic contact is inversely associated with this form of mobility, but these associations operate largely through other redictors. Prior experiences of ethnic discrimination increase and residence in public housing decreases the likelihood that Latino immigrants will move from their origin neighborhoods, while residing in metropolitan areas with large Latino populations leads to geographic moves into “less Anglo” census tracts.     

Unemployment,immigration, and NAFTA: a panel study of ten major U.S. industries

We conduct a pooled cross-section and time-series analysis of the unemployment rates across ten major industries in the U.S. from 1983 to 1994 to assess the effect of NAFTA and immigration. Our results indicate that the output produced by the industry, unemployment benefit coverage, and interest rates are significant determinants of industry unemployment rates, but union presence does not affect industry unemployment. Both Canadian and Mexican immigrants appear to be complements to the U.S. labor force, with Canadian immigrants highly complementary to American labor. Finally, the Chow test provides no evidence that NAFTA has changed the structure of unemployment determination in these industries. We are indebted to Emily Hoffman and Matthew Higgins for their comments and suggestions. The usual disclaimer applies.