From the West Indies to Africa: A universal generational decline in health among blacks in the United States

Research shows that foreign-born blacks have better health profiles than their U.S.-born counterparts. Less is known, however, regarding whether black immigrants’ favorable health outcomes persist across generations or whether these patterns differ across the diverse sending regions for black immigrants. In this study, we use data from the 1996–2014 waves of the March Current Population Survey (CPS) to investigate generational differences in self-rated health among blacks with West Indian, Haitian, Latin American, and African ancestry. We show that first-generation black immigrants have a lower probability of reporting fair/poor health than third/higher generation blacks. The health advantage of the first generation over the third/higher generation is slightly more prounced among the foreign-born who migrated to the United States after age 13. Second-generation immigrants with two foreign-born parents are generally less likely to report their health as fair/poor than the third/higher generation. However, we find no evidence that self-reported fair/poor health varies between second-generation immigrants with mixed nativity parents (only one foreign-born parent) and the third/higher generation. These general patterns hold across each of the ancestral subgroups in the study sample. In summary, our findings highlight a remarkable convergence in health across immigrant generations among blacks in the United States.     

Early cognitive skills of Mexican-origin children: The roles of parental nativity and legal status

Although one-third of children of immigrants have undocumented parents, little is known about their early development. Using data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey and decennial census, we assessed how children's cognitive skills at ages 3 to 5 vary by ethnicity, maternal nativity, and maternal legal status. Specifically, Mexican children of undocumented mothers were contrasted with Mexican children of documented mothers and Mexican, white, and black children with U.S.-born mothers. Mexican children of undocumented mothers had lower emergent reading skills than all other groups and lower emergent mathematics skills than all groups with U.S.-born mothers. Multilevel regression models showed that differences in reading skills are explained by aspects of the home environment, but the neighborhood context also matters. Cross-level interactions suggest that immigrant concentration boosts emergent reading and mathematics skills for children with undocumented parents, but does not similarly benefit children whose parents are native born.     

Level of economic development of the country of origin and work-to-family conflict after migration to Canada

Using a sample of employed adults living in Canada, this article examines patterns and antecedents of work-to-family conflict (WFC) among immigrants, relative to the native-born. We test whether the origin-country— or intermediary country of residence— country-level economic development, and length of residence in Canada interact to affect WFC differentially for immigrants. We hypothesize that origin-country economic development impacts the value and transferability of immigrants' capital in the host country. Discrepancies between the two results in underemployment, stressful work experiences, and thus greater WFC for immigrants, relative to the native-born. Results indicate greater WFC among recent and established immigrants from less developed countries and among established immigrants from developed countries. This finding, however, is conditioned by gender and particularly strong among established immigrant men from less developed countries, compared to their female counterparts.     

Student misbehavior during senior year: A comparison of immigrants and the native-born

Prior research has increasingly shown that the length of time in the U.S. and acculturation may have negative effects on a variety of immigrant outcomes, including academic performance, health, and occupational attainment. However, much of the research on the educational outcomes of immigrants focuses primarily on their academic achievement but neglects another factor that affects educational success—behavior at school. Using data from a sample of high school seniors in several Pacific Northwest school districts, I examine whether more time in the U.S. increases school misbehavior by testing the effects of immigrant generation and indicators of acculturation on three measures of disciplinary problems during the senior year of high school—attending class unprepared, getting in trouble for breaking school rules, and being put on suspension. First and one-point-five generation immigrants attend class more prepared and get into less trouble for breaking the school rules than do third or higher generation students during their senior year of high school. High academic performance and indicators of acculturation explain only part of this beneficial effect of immigrant generation on behavior at school. Additional analyses show that second generation Asian immigrants are more similar to first and 1.5 generation immigrants from all racial and ethnic groups than they are from other second generation racial and ethnic groups in regards to moderate and intermediate behavior.     

How do they do it? The immigrant paradox in the transition to adulthood

How do children of immigrants consistently outperform children of native-born U.S. parents, in spite of lower familial resources? Using the Transition to Adulthood Study of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, children of immigrant and native-born parents completing high school in 2005–13 are followed as they move into the young adult years. Children of immigrants are more likely to enroll in college, be employed or in school, and less likely to have a criminal record as young adults or to have a child than children of nonimmigrants. This is not a result of immigrant parentage but due primarily to greater parental educational expectations; immigrants enjoy a differential return to parental expectations for boys' college enrollment as well. Reading skills and activity patterns in the secondary school years also contribute to better outcomes. Children of immigrants are better able to translate their reading comprehension skills to college or employment later on.     

New faces in new spaces in new places: Residential attainment among newly legalized immigrants in established,new, and minor destinations

Immigrants at the beginning of the twenty-first century are located in a more diverse set of metropolitan areas than at any point in U.S. history. Whether immigrants' residential prospects are helped or hindered in new versus established immigrant-receiving areas has been the subject of debate. Using multilevel models and data from the New Immigrant Survey (NIS), a nationally representative sample of newly legalized immigrants to the U.S., we move beyond aggregate-level analyses of residential segregation to specify the influence of destination type on individual-level immigrant residential outcomes. The findings indicate that immigrants in new and minor destinations are significantly more likely to live in tracts with relatively more non-Hispanic whites and relatively fewer immigrants and poor residents. These residential advantages persist net of individual-level controls but are largely accounted for by place-to-place differences in metropolitan composition and structure. Our exclusive focus on newly legalized immigrants means that our findings do not necessarily contradict the possibility of worse residential prospects in new areas of settlement, but rather qualifies it as not extending to the newly authorized population.     

Selective Emigration, Cohort Quality, and Models of Immigrant Assimilation

In this article we identify sample underenumeration, changing cohort quality, and selective emigration as problems that threaten the validity of findings on immigrant socioeconomic assimilation derived from cross-sectional data. Using information on Mexican immigrants from the 1990 U.S. census and a unique binational source of data, we address the effects of these problems on cross-sectional regressions of English proficiency and wage attainment. Our results suggest that the underenumeration of temporary and undocumented migrants biases the estimated effects of human capital variables downward, but that selective emigration does not significantly affect cross-sectional models. We do find, however, that period of entry is a poor proxy for total migrant experience, and when we disentangle duration and cohort effects, we find some evidence for shifts in cohort quality over time, but not the systematic decline seen by others.     

Dual-language characteristics and earnings: Male Mexican workers in the United States

This paper examines income differentials between native-born white males of non-Hispanic origins and Mexican American males of varying linguistic statuses. The analysis relies on conventional modeling techniques of the earnings process and the selected use of mother tongue, English fluency, and primary language usage to categorize the Mexican American population. The findings differ among the derived groups. Among Mexican immigrants, there does not appear to be any direct economic reward for speaking English. For the U.S.-born Chicanos, there is only a small economic advantage associated with being reared as an English monolingual, and there appears to be a clear disadvantage directly associated with being a Spanish-dominant bilingual.     

Experiencing discrimination in Los Angeles: Latinos at the intersection of legal status and socioeconomic status

Despite its recent slowdown, immigration from Latin America continues to be a controversial issue. Some scholars argue that the social climate is increasingly inhospitable to Latinos, potentially fueling discriminatory attitudes and behaviors. However, little research has examined Latinos' experiences with discrimination, especially variation by nativity and legal status. We address this issue with research on perceived discrimination among Mexican and Central American residents of Los Angeles County, a major destination for Latin American immigrants. Using data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey and the American Community Survey, the analyses consider immigrants’ legal status, intersectionality, and competing perspectives on assimilation. The results show that undocumented immigrants do not report especially high levels of discrimination. Instead, young U.S.-born Latinos are the most likely to report mistreatment in interpersonal and institutional domains. Neighborhood ethnoracial and income diversity also have implications for perceived exposure to different types of discrimination.     

Underemployment across immigrant generations

The employment circumstances of immigrants and their children constitute a key dimension along which immigrant adaptation to the U.S. can be evaluated. We describe and analyze employment adequacy—defined as underemployment—among first, second and third (or higher) immigrant generations. Analyzing CPS data for the decade spanning 1995–2004, we find support for the notion of successful economic assimilation. The prevalence of underemployment is decidedly higher among the first-generation compared to the second or third, while the latter two groups differ little in this regard. These gross comparisons, however, mask important variation within immigrant generations, including a particular disadvantage among foreign-born non-citizens.     

Wealth accumulation among U.S. immigrants: A study of assimilation and differentials

Data from the New Immigrant Survey are used to study wealth differentials among U.S. legal permanent residents. This study is unique in its ability to account for wealth held in the U.S. and that held abroad and yields several key findings. First, relative to immigrants from Western Europe, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand (who have median wealth similar to native born non-Hispanic whites), other immigrant groups have lower levels of total wealth even after accounting for permanent income and life course characteristics. Second, time in the U.S. is positively associated with the wealth of married immigrants, yet this relationship is not statistically significant for single immigrants. Third, differences in the means of measured characteristics between Western European immigrants and those from most other origin regions account for more than 75 percent of observed wealth disparities. However, for immigrants from Asia and from the Indian subcontinent, much of the wealth differential remains unexplained by these factors.     

Physical-psychiatric comorbidity: Implications for health measurement and the Hispanic Epidemiological Paradox

Few studies examine the co-occurrence of physical and psychiatric health problems (physical-psychiatric comorbidity), and whether these patterns differ across social groups. Using the National Comorbidity Survey-Replication and National Latino and Asian American Study, the current study asks: what are the patterns of physical-psychiatric comorbidity (PPC) between non-Hispanic Whites and Latino subgroups, further differentiated by gender and nativity? Does the PPC measurement approach reveal different patterns across groups compared to when only physical or only psychiatric health problems are the health outcomes of interest? To what extent do sociodemographic characteristics (SES, stress exposure, social support, immigration-related factors) explain PPC differences between groups? Results reveal that compared to U.S.-born non-Hispanic White men, island-born Puerto Rican men experience elevated PPC risk. Mexican and Other Latino women and men experience relatively lower risk of PPC relative to their non-Hispanic White counterparts. Social factors explain some of the health disadvantage of island-born Puerto Rican men, but do not explain the health advantage of Mexicans and Other Latinos.     

Migration and stratification

Migration and stratification are increasingly intertwined. One day soon it will be impossible to understand one without the other. Both focus on life chances. Stratification is about differential life chances - who gets what and why - and migration is about improving life chances - getting more of the good things of life. To examine the interconnections of migration and stratification, we address a mix of old and new questions, carrying out analyses newly enabled by a unique new data set on recent legal immigrants to the United States (the New Immigrant Survey). We look at immigrant processing and lost documents, depression due to the visa process, presentation of self, the race-ethnic composition of an immigrant cohort (made possible by the data for the first time since 1961), black immigration from Africa and the Americas, skin color diversity among couples formed by US citizen sponsors and immigrant spouses, and English fluency among children age 8-12 and their immigrant parents. We find, inter alia, that children of previously illegal parents are especially more likely to be fluent in English, that native-born US citizen women tend to marry darker, that immigrant applicants who go through the visa process while already in the United States are more likely to have their documents lost and to suffer visa depression, and that immigration, by introducing accomplished black immigrants from Africa (notably via the visa lottery), threatens to overturn racial and skin color associations with skill. Our analyses show the mutual embeddedness of migration and stratification in the unfolding of the immigrants’ and their children’s life chances and the impacts on the stratification structure of the United States.     

Immigrant use of public assistance and mode of entry: Demographics versus dependence

A view that gained momentum in the 1990s, and which is sustained by some policy analysts and labor economists today, is that dependence on public assistance is greater for immigrants than for natives. Accordingly, this study investigates nativity differentials in the use of nine assistance programs, focusing on immigrant arrival cohorts within three distinct mode-of-entry proxy categories. The logistic regression analysis uses data from the 2013 CPS March supplement. To permit more nuanced interpretation, control variables are introduced hierarchically in a three-stage analysis. One new finding is that each of the three major regional-origin groups within the 1980–1995 refugee cohort—with an average length of residence exceeding two decades—sustains greater use of either SSI or Medicaid than natives. The study concludes that nativity differences in the use of public assistance continue to rest on the socio-demographic composition of three distinct populations, determined by mode of entry into the U.S.     

Hurdles or walls? Nativity,citizenship, legal status and Latino homeownership in Los Angeles

Homeownership is directly and indirectly linked with many positive child, adult, and community-level outcomes. Prior research offers strong evidence that nativity and immigrants’ citizenship status shapes U.S. homeownership, but relatively little work has explored how immigrants’ legal status is connected with homeownership. This study draws from locational attainment and classic assimilation theories to develop hypotheses about sources of intra-Latino heterogeneity in homeownership. Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey data are used to contrast four distinct groups of Latinos: U.S. born natives, naturalized citizens, authorized non-citizens, and unauthorized non-citizens. Logistic regression results indicate baseline and residual variation in Latino homeownership based on immigrant citizenship and legal status. Of these, unauthorized non-citizens are the least likely to own their home. The results provide support for all three theoretical models, particularly the place stratification perspective. The results also point to the need for more housing studies that jointly examine citizenship and legal status.     

Another health insurance gap: Gaining and losing coverage among natives and immigrants at older ages

As the immigrant population grows older and larger, limitations on access to health insurance may create a new subgroup of people who remain outside or on the margin of coverage. Using the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data from the 2004 and 2008 panels, we address the health insurance gap between foreign-born and native-born adults among those aged 50–64 and the 65 and older, two sub-populations that have received relatively little attention in past research. We argue that current practices leave a significant minority of older foreign-born residents inconsistently covered or without any insurance. We find that health insurance coverage for older immigrants is both less likely and more episodic even when compositional differences in SES and assimilation are controlled.     

Economic conditions and native-immigrant asymmetries in generalized social trust

Previous research suggests that individual-level factors such as socio-economic disadvantage and discrimination account for lower levels of generalized social trust of immigrants when compared to natives. This study examines how individual and contextual economic conditions impact such trust gaps. We argue that—beyond objective economic circumstances—evaluations of economic opportunities matter for immigrants’ integration, and for their social trust. Using data from the European Social Survey 2012, 2016, merged with regional economic conditions, results from two-way fixed effects multilevel models show that gaps in social trust are wider in regions where the state of the economy is predominantly evaluated as being prosperous. Additional tests show that, in those regions, immigrants report higher levels of discrimination and lower levels of satisfaction with social life. This study adds the important finding to the literature on social inequality and immigrant integration that favorable economic conditions may, paradoxically, increase native-immigrant trust asymmetries.     

Age at migration,family instability,and timing of sexual onset

This study builds on and extends previous research on nativity variations in adolescent health and risk behavior by addressing three questions: (1) whether and how generational status and age at migration are associated with timing of sexual onset among U.S. adolescents; (2) whether and how family instability mediates associations between nativity and sexual debut; and (3) whether and how these associations vary by gender. We find that first- and second-generation immigrant youth initiate sexual activity later than native youth. Foreign-born youth who migrate after the start of adolescence exhibit the latest sexual onset; boys’ sexual behavior is particularly sensitive to age at migration. Parental union stability is protective for first- and second-generation youth, especially boys; however, instability in co-residence with parents accelerates sexual debut for foreign-born girls, and dilutes protections from parental marital stability. Use of a non-English language at home delays sexual onset for immigrant girls, but not boys.     

Re-examining the relationship between Latino immigration and racial/ethnic violence

Whether immigration increases crime has long been a source of political debate and scholarly interest. Despite widespread public opinion to the contrary, the weight of evidence suggests the most recent wave of U.S. immigration has not increased crime, and may have actually helped reduce criminal violence. However, with recent shifts in immigrant settlement patterns away from traditional receiving destinations, a series of contemporary studies suggests a more complicated immigration-crime relationship, whereby Latino immigration is said to increase violence in newer immigrant destinations (but not in established destinations) and has varied effects for different racial/ethnic groups. With few exceptions, these more recent studies rely on cross-sectional analyses, thus limiting their ability to examine the longitudinal nexus between Latino immigration and violent crime. This study brings to bear the first longitudinal data set to test the relationship between immigration and racial/ethnic homicide in U.S. metropolitan areas between 1990 and 2010. Results from bivariate longitudinal associations and multivariate fixed effects models are contrary to recent findings – Latino immigration is generally associated with decreases in homicide victimization for whites, blacks, and Hispanics in both established and non-established immigrant destinations, though these associations are not significant in all cases.     

奈保尔:大地上的异乡人——试析《河湾》的移民主题

奈保尔是一位具有多重身份的移民作家。移民者的身份问题和文化认同问题是他作品中一直关注的主题,他的《河湾》一书充分体现了移民者的无根性和对自我身份认同的徒劳追寻。