Cohabitation,Relationship Quality,and Desistance From Crime

Although the empirical links between marriage and desistance are well established, very little is known about the degree to which cohabitation is associated with changes in criminal behavior. This is a significant oversight given that, among some segments of the population, cohabitation has become more common than marriage. In this article, the author investigated the links between cohabitation and desistance from crime. In doing so, particular attention was paid to the possibility that similarities between the apparent effects of marriage and cohabitation are obscured by variations in relationship quality and the increasing tendency for cohabitation to precede marriage. Analyses based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (N = 3,232) indicate that cohabitation is associated with reductions in the rate of property and drug offending, but not the termination of violent, property, or drug offending. By contrast, marriage is consistently associated with large reductions in the rate of offending across the 3 crime categories as well as the abandonment of those crimes. These results provide greater insight into the links between adult family relationships, such as cohabitation and marriage, and desistance from crime.     

Women's desistance from crime: A review of theory and the role higher education can play

The emergent field of desistance research originated among scholars who were interested in the persistence or termination of crime among young men. From a focus on the structured effects of age‐graded events such as employment and marriage on desistance, the field has now broadened its interest into desistance as an interplay among identity, cognitive factors, and sociogenic factors. Mirroring the growth in theories about women's pathways to offending, the field of desistance has taken on a greater focus on gender as a determinant of crime termination. The discussion of women's desistance presented here provides the basis for a recommendation that higher education may play a pivotal role in enhancing women's successful reintegration into society after prison.     

The future of marriage and hispanics

At least two important demographic changes will occur in the United States in the future: the growth of the Hispanic population and the growth of the second and third generations among Hispanics. We argue that the expansion of the Hispanic population is unlikely to slow the retreat from marriage, despite the pronuptial cultural orientations of some groups of immigrants and their native‐born coethnics. On the contrary, the second‐ and third‐generation descendents of immigrants will join in the retreat from marriage as a result of their exposure to the cultural and economic environment of the United States, as well as changes in the countries from which their immigrant parents originate. Sources of uncertainty about this scenario are noted.     

Does Selective Migration Matter? Explaining Ethnic Disparities in Educational Attainment among Immigrants’Children1

Understanding why some national‐origin groups excel in school while others do not is an enduring sociological puzzle. This paper examines whether the degree of immigrants’educational selectivity ‐ that is, how immigrants differ educationally from non‐migrants in the home country ‐ influences educational outcomes among groups of immigrants’children. This study uses published international data and U. S. Census and Current Population Survey data on 32 immigrant groups to show that as immigrants’educational selectivity increases, the college attainment of the second generation also increases. Moreover, the more positive selection of Asian immigrants helps explain their second generations’higher college attendance rates as compared to Europeans, Afro‐Caribbeans, and Latinos. Thus, the findings suggest that inequalities in relative pre‐migration educational attainments among immigrants are often reproduced among the next generation in the United States.     

Immigration and Intermarriage Among Hispanics: Crossing Racial and Generational Boundaries1

Rates of Hispanic intermarriage with whites declined for the first time during the 1990s. One hypothesis, which we test here, is that the recent influx of new immigrants has provided an expanding marriage market for Hispanics, reinforced cultural and ethnic identity, and slowed the process of marital assimilation. In this article, we use data from the March Current Population Survey (1995–2008) to identify generational differences in Hispanic‐white intermarriage. The results indicate that second‐generation Hispanics were more likely to marry first‐ rather than third‐generation Hispanics or whites, a pattern that was reinforced over the study period. The results suggest declining rates of intermarriage among second‐generation Hispanics—a pattern that diverges sharply from those observed among third‐plus‐generation Hispanics, where in‐marriage with other Hispanics declined over time. If couched in the language of straight line assimilation theory, third‐plus‐generation Hispanics are assimilating by increasingly marrying other third‐generation co‐ethnics and whites. On the other hand, assimilation among the second‐generation is slowing down as its members increasingly reconnect to their native culture by marrying immigrants.     

Asian American Interracial and Interethnic Marriages: Differences by Education and Nativity1

Using the 1990 U.S. census data, we apply log‐linear models to examine Asian Americans' interracial marriage with whites and interethnic marriages between Asian ethnic groups. Japanese and Filipino Americans are most likely to marry whites, followed by Chinese and Korean Americans. Southeast Asian and Asian Indian Americans are least likely to marry whites. We further explore how interracial marriage differs by couples' educational and nativity combinations. The impact of educational attainment, generally, is very strong but is modest for Japanese Americans, the most assimilated group, and for Southeast Asian Americans, the least assimilated group. Interracial marriage is more likely for native than for immigrant couples, but immigrants marrying natives are more likely to marry whites than persons of their own ethnic group. Interethnic marriage between Asian ethnic groups is limited to several ethnic groups, but is much more frequent among natives than among immigrants. Japanese and Chinese Americans, who have lived in the United States for several generations, have the highest rate of interethnic marriage. We have shown two forms of integration for Asian Americans – integration into mainstream society through interracial marriage for both immigrants and natives and integration into Asian American pan‐ethnicity through interethnic marriage for later‐generation natives.     

Social Reproduction of Religiosity in the Immigrant Context: The Role of Family Transmission and Family Formation — Evidence from France

This paper compares two aspects of the social reproduction of religion: parent‐to‐child transmission, and religious homogamy. Analysis of a survey of immigrants in France shows that for parent‐to‐child transmission, immigrant status/generation is not the central variable — rather, variation is across religions with Muslim families showing high continuity. Immigrant status/generation does directly matter for partner choice. In Christian and Muslim families alike, religious in‐partnering significantly declines in the second generation. In turn, the offspring of religiously non‐homogamous families is less religious. For Muslim immigrants this points to the possibility of a non‐trivial decline in religiosity in the third generation.     

Race/Ethnicity and Stop‐and‐Frisk: Past,Present, Future

Scholarly debates surrounding stop‐and‐frisk typically assess the effectiveness and lawfulness of stop‐and‐frisk. Notwithstanding these efforts, recent reviews have excluded some recent research that addresses its impact on racial and ethnic immigrants. Understanding how the practice of stop‐and‐frisk affects racial and ethnic immigrants is worth including in reviews of these policies, considering the recent growth of research involving crime and immigrants that largely finds that immigration does not result in higher levels of crime. This review includes recent work showing that overall enforcement – stops and arrests – is higher in immigrant communities despite their lower levels of criminal involvement and recent work exploring differences among first‐generation and second‐generation immigrants in perceptions of police stops. Finally, some suggestions for the future of stop‐and‐frisk research are considered.     

The Second Generation in Belgium

A growing proportion of second‐generation Moroccan and Turkish youngsters in Belgium are moving on to higher secondary education and beyond. This trend is greater among Moroccan youngsters than among their Turkish peers. Turkish girls in particular are still married off at a young age, which inevitably affects their educational opportunities. Despite higher participation rates for youngsters from immigrant backgrounds, the educational gap with Belgian pupils and students remains wide. This is largely attributable to differences in socioeconomic background. It appears that the concentration of second‐generation immigrant pupils in certain schools is also a major explanatory factor. Despite their increased participation in education, second‐generation immigrants are still not well represented in the labor market and they are, moreover, employed mostly in less favorable segments of that market. An interesting development among second‐generation immigrants is the polarization that is taking place in relation to the significance of Islam. A growing number of second‐generation youngsters are opting for a more secular way of life, while an increasingly large group is choosing Islamist ideologies or at least a more conscious form of Islam. For young people of the second generation, who often have little to hold on to socially, Islamism can provide a transparent, supportive, and all‐embracing frame of reference.     

Marriage and immigration enforcement: The impact of Secure Communities on immigrant women

We investigate if increased deportations under the Secure Communities (SC) program impacted the marriage patterns of immigrant women in the United States. We focus on country of origin-MSA deportation rates, arguing this is appropriate given the dominance of endogamous marriage among immigrants and large heterogeneity in removal rates. We find that rising deportations increased marriage rates and endogamous marriage, decreased exogamous marriage to immigrants from other countries, and had no impact on marriage to native-born men. This is striking because SC likely reduced same ethnicity partners in marriage markets. We find some evidence that increased network effects may explain these results.     

Immigrant socioeconomic mobility in the United States: Mechanisms of inequality and the role of ethnic capital

We review recent social science research on the socioeconomic mobility of immigrants to the United States by focusing on the educational, occupational, and income attainments among immigrant adults, the first‐generation, and the educational attainment of their children, the New Second‐Generation. Existing research has identified significant inequalities in educational attainment between second‐generation Asian and Latinx immigrant groups. Researchers have also highlighted the importance of ethnic capital for mobility, but we find that they have largely proceeded with the assumption that co‐ethnic ties are easily available as a benefit for immigrants upon resettlement. We propose that future research on immigrant socioeconomic mobility should incorporate conceptual insights from economic and cultural sociology as well as use comparative ethnographic research designs to directly observe how ethnic capital operates to challenge or reinforce patterns of socioeconomic inequality.     

Enrolment in Mathematics and Physics at The Advanced Level in Secondary School Among Two Generations of Highly Skilled Immigrants

This research focuses on enrolment in advanced level Mathematics and Physics in secondary school among first and second generations of Former Soviet Union immigrants and third generation Israeli‐born Jews. The article made use of the Israeli Ministry of Education's database, which includes data on all students who finished their secondary education with a matriculation certificate in 2013. Our findings show the advantage of enrolment in Physics, which is perceived as the most difficult subject, among FSU immigrant students compared to the third generation of Israeli‐born students. This advantage may be explained by their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)‐related cultural capital. However, first‐generation FSU students were less likely to be enrolled in advanced‐level Mathematics compared to third‐generation Jews. These findings may emphasize the role of the Israeli education system as a gatekeeper in entering more prestigious Mathematics.     

Generational Peers and Alcohol Misuse

This study investigates the influence of generational peers on alcohol misuse among immigrant youth. We derive hypotheses from sociological theories of generations regarding race/ethnicity, gender, and immigrant generation and test these hypotheses using a measure that accounts for the proportion of peers within a given peer network that are of the same immigrant generation. Results show that generational ties decreased the odds of alcohol misuse for immigrants and that these effects depend partly on race/ethnicity and gender. We conclude that generational ties play a meaningful role in the health and well‐being of immigrant youth, and discuss possible future avenues for research on immigrant generational peers.     

On the Existential Aspects of Desistance from Crime

This article seeks to introduce several core insights of existential thought and existential sociology to study why people desist from crime (stop offending). By investigating the internal processes associated with desistance, existential sociology can contribute to our theoretical understanding of this phenomenon. The article demonstrates the usefulness of this approach by presenting a case study of one ex‐offender who has successfully desisted. The study demonstrates that gaining employment and rebuilding familial relationships were important factors in the process of creating a new sense of self. In addition, successful desistance entails developing a sense of what the future may hold for the individual and a sense of how this future can be realized. The implications of these findings for both theory and practice are discussed.     

Immigrant Incorporation and Political Participation in the United States1

This article examines several factors related to immigrant incorporation that have been ignored in previous studies of voting participation. We add various immigrant‐related variables to a model that controls for individual resources, social incorporation, institutional barriers and contexts of political mobilization. We find little support for straight‐line assimilationist theories of immigrant adaptation. We also find that coming from a repressive regime has no significant effect on voting and that living in areas with Spanish‐language ballots does not increase the likelihood of voting among first generation Latinos. Our results also suggest that antiimmigrant legislation has a positive effect on participation among first and second generation immigrants. Overall, the immigrant‐related variables introduced in our analysis add significantly to the existing theoretical knowledge on voting participation in the United States.     

Racialized Incorporation: The Effects of Race and Generational Status on Self‐Employment and Industry‐Sector Prestige in the United States

This study examines how race and generational status shape self‐employment propensities and industry‐sector prestige among the self‐employed in the U.S. It draws on theories of assimilation, racialization, and a combined framework, racialized incorporation, to guide the analysis and interpret the results. It uses data from the U.S. March Current Population Survey (2000–2010) offering the first nationally representative examination of second‐generation self‐employment in the U.S. This study investigates three questions. First, do the odds of being self‐employed decline in the second and third generations? Second, do generational patterns in self‐employment propensities vary by race? And finally, do race and generational status affect the odds of being self‐employed in low‐, medium‐, and high‐prestige industry sectors? Results offer some support for the assimilation perspective: Immigrants are generally more likely than third‐generation groups to be self‐employed with the exception of Asians, where second‐generation Asians have the greatest odds of being self‐employed. However, results also reveal that generational patterns in self‐employment propensities vary by race and industry‐sector prestige. Accordingly, first‐ and second‐generation whites have the greatest odds of being self‐employed (across all levels of industry‐sector prestige), and third‐generation whites are more likely than all generations of blacks and Hispanics to be engaged in high‐prestige self‐employment. These findings suggest that immigrants, their offspring, and native‐born groups undergo a racialized incorporation in which self‐employment is organized along hierarchical and racial lines associated with uneven levels of prestige.     

The Role of Premigration Status in the Acculturation of Chinese–Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans

Drawing from fifty in‐depth interviews, this research examines the role of existing parental language knowledge on the ethnic identity negotiation of two ethnically distinct children of immigrant groups—Vietnamese and Chinese–Vietnamese—whose families have emigrated from Vietnam to the Southern California region of the United States. While previous research focused primarily on the influence of premigration status on first‐generation immigrants, this article considers how a central aspect of premigration status (intranational ethnicity) applies specifically to the children of first generation immigrants. By taking the premigration approach of comparing the experiences of different ancestral‐origin groups from a single nation (the intranational ethnicity perspective), this analysis suggests that a family's premigration ethnic status shapes the 1.5 and second‐generation's ethnic self‐identification choices through the mediation of parental language knowledge. Specifically, for the children of immigrants with twice‐minority status (Chinese–Vietnamese Americans), parental language knowledge serves as an easy ethnic identity default during these children's early self‐identification process.     

Patterns of Intermarriages and Cross‐Generational In‐Marriages among Native‐Born Asian Americans

This article examines patterns of post‐1965 native‐born Asian Americans’ intermarriages and cross‐generational in‐marriages using a combined sample of the 2001–2006 American Community Surveys from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. The analysis focuses on ethnic and gender differences in intermarriage and cross‐generational in‐marriage rates and patterns. About 55 percent of native‐born Asian Americans are found to be intermarried while another 23 percent are married to 1.5‐generation or first‐generation co‐ethnic immigrants. Thus only 22 percent of native‐born Asian Americans are married to co‐ethnic native‐born Asian Americans. As expected, there are significant ethnic and gender differences in intermarriage and cross‐generational in‐marriage rates and patterns. This study is significant because it is the first study that has examined intermarriage patterns among post‐1965 native‐born Asian Americans, the majority of whom are likely to be children of post‐1965 Asian immigrants, using the most recent Census data available. It is also significant for studies of the new second generation in general in that it is the first study to show patterns of cross‐generational in‐marriage among members of the new second generation.