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.     

Comparisons of the success of racial minority immigrant offspring in the United States, Canada and Australia

The educational, occupational and income success of the racial minority immigrant offspring is very similar for many immigrant origins groups in the United States, Canada and Australia. An analysis based on merged files of Current Population Surveys for the United States for the period 1995-2007, and the 2001 Censuses of Canada and Australia, and taking account of urban areas of immigrant settlement, reveals common patterns of high achievement for the Chinese and South Asian second generation, less for other Asian origins, and still less for those of Afro-Caribbean black origins. Relatively lower entry statuses for these immigrant groups in the US are eliminated for the second generation, indicating they experience stronger upward inter-generational mobility. As well, ‘segmented assimilation’ suggesting downward assimilation of Afro-Caribbean immigrants into an urban underclass in the US, also receives little support.     

“Making it work: Migration,motherhood and employment in Australia”

The transition into motherhood is often associated with a reduction in women's labor force participation, reinforcing gender employment hierarchies. Our study compares women's employment status and paid work time prior to and following birth among immigrants and native-borns in Australia. We also consider how these outcomes differ by generation status and racial and ethnic background. Australia provides a valuable context to understand these outcomes given its skilled migration policy, racial and ethnic diversity, limited childcare and family leave policies, and high rates of part-time work among mothers. We examine longitudinal data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) for women from 2001 to 2016. We find that migrant women show lower employment levels and commensurate work hours than native-borns prior to childbirth. After childbirth, migrant mothers maintain lower employment levels, but higher work hours than native-born mothers. Overall, we find that relative to native-borns, migrant women typically experience a smaller reduction in employment and work hours following childbirth, but some of this is likely due to their lower starting position prior to childbirth. Our findings have implications for skilled immigration policies and highlights the unique work-family pressures facing immigrant and native-born women.     

Immigrant and native financial well-being: The roles of place of education and race/ethnicity

Immigrants’ integration into U.S. society has occupied the interest of both scholars and the general public throughout the nation’s history. This paper draws on and refines dominance-differentiation theory to explore how immigrants’ place of education (whether they completed their education in the United States or abroad) and racial/ethnic status differentially affect their ability to integrate into U.S. society. Using the Survey of Income and Program Participation and wealth attainment as an indicator of economic integration, this paper finds mixed evidence for dominance-differentiation theory. Foreign education is associated with lower wealth attainment and race/ethnicity serves as an important stratifying factor for blacks and Latinos; however, there is little support for the theory when comparing the wealth attainment of immigrants with their same-race/co-ethnic native-born peers. This paper concludes with a discussion of why place of education matters for wealth attainment in the United States and explores its implications for both educational and racial/ethnic stratification among U.S. immigrants.     

“Value in diversity”: School racial and ethnic composition,teacher diversity,and school punishment

American schools have become increasingly punitive and characterized by racial and ethnic disparities in punishment outcomes. Scholarship on the causes and consequences of this shift has highlighted the potential salience of school context. The current study extends this work by exploring the potential effect of an underexplored factor, teacher diversity, on suspension disparities. To date, explorations of the role of teacher diversity have been limited to its impact on academic outcomes, teacher perceptions, and behavioral outcomes. The current study fills a void in the existing literature by examining (1) whether greater teacher diversity is associated with reductions in racial and ethnic suspension disparities and (2) whether greater teacher diversity interacts with the size of the racial and ethnic student population to influence suspension disparities. This study contributes to the existing literature by extending the “value in diversity” perspective to the school setting. Additionally, the findings suggest that racial and ethnic diversity in positions of authority in the school setting fosters a more equitable approach to the administration of student punishment.     

Immigrant generation, selective acculturation, and alcohol use among Latina/o adolescents

Do alcohol use and binge drinking among Latina/o adolescents increase in the second and third generation? This study explores generational differences in alcohol use behaviors for three Latina/o ethnic groups. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health on 1504 Latina/o adolescents in secondary school, we found that the factors associated with alcohol use behaviors differed across the Latina/o groups. For Mexican and Cuban adolescents, but not Puerto Ricans, immigrant generation was associated with alcohol use. For Mexican, but not Cuban adolescents, acculturation mediated the effect of immigrant generation on alcohol use behaviors. Although generally social capital and a co-ethnic presence were protective factors against alcohol use behaviors, we found that some forms of social capital were actually risk factors for Cubans and Puerto Ricans. Our results provide support for segmented-assimilation theory.     

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.     

Marrying out: A boundary approach to understanding the marital integration of Asian Americans

For decades, studies of intermarriage have provided insights regarding the integration and assimilation of ethnic groups in the US. In this paper, marriage outcomes are analyzed to gain a better understanding of the integration of Asian Americans into American society. Instead of utilizing assimilation theories that focus on individual-level variables such as education and nativity, I extend two theoretical perspectives to develop a boundary approach which emphasizes the how structured contexts at ethnic and racial boundary levels influence intermarriage outcomes. This approach recognizes the layered character of ethnic boundaries and the salience of ethnic and racial boundaries for new immigrant groups. Multinomial logistic regression models are used to analyze 2000 US Census data. The results generally support the theoretical predictions, suggesting that demographic distributions and the ways in which groups are structured in relation to one another along racial and ethnic boundaries are important predictors of intermarriage.     

Me and Jasmina down by the schoolyard: An analysis of the impact of ethnic diversity in school on the trust of schoolchildren

Earlier research has indicated a negative relationship between ethnic diversity and trust. Whereas previous analyses have been carried out at the country, city or neighbourhood level, this paper adds to the literature by analyzing the impact of ethnic diversity on generalized trust in others and out-group trust in the primary school context. The question of the impact of ethnic diversity in school on the trust of schoolchildren is addressed by drawing on a unique survey of children with immigrant and native Danish backgrounds, respectively, in the last three grades of primary school in Denmark. The survey design holds several qualities strengthening the potential for drawing inference about the impact of ethnic diversity in school on trust. The results of the analysis do not confirm the negative relationship between ethnic diversity and trust found in earlier research. In the primary school setting, ethnic diversity does not affect generalized trust and even has a positive impact on out-group trust of native Danish pupils (i.e., their trust in immigrants).     

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.     

School co-ethnicity and Hispanic parental involvement

Scholars of immigration disagree about the role ethnic communities play in immigrant families’ engagement in educational institutions. While some researchers argue that the concentration of disadvantaged ethnic groups may prevent meaningful engagement with schools, others argue that ethnic communities can possess resources that help immigrant families be involved in their children’s schooling. In this study we use a nationally representative dataset of Hispanic children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) to determine if the relative size of the Hispanic population in the school affects levels of their parents’ involvement in their education, as well as parents’ perceptions of barriers to their involvement. Our results suggest that a large Hispanic presence in a child’s school can help increase immigrant Hispanic parents’ involvement in their children’s schooling, but there are no benefits for US-born Hispanic parents, indicating that ethnic communities help immigrant families acculturate to American institutions.     

Gatekeepers of the American Dream: How teachers’ perceptions shape the academic outcomes of immigrant and language-minority students

High school teachers evaluate and offer guidance to students as they approach the transition to college based in part on their perceptions of the student's hard work and potential to succeed in college. Their perceptions may be especially crucial for immigrant and language-minority students navigating the U.S. educational system. Using the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002), we consider how the intersection of nativity and language-minority status may (1) inform teachers’ perceptions of students’ effort and college potential, and (2) shape the link between teachers’ perceptions and students’ academic progress towards college (grades and likelihood of advancing to more demanding math courses). We find that teachers perceive immigrant language-minority students as hard workers, and that their grades reflect that perception. However, these same students are less likely than others to advance in math between the sophomore and junior years, a critical point for preparing for college. Language-minority students born in the U.S. are more likely to be negatively perceived. Yet, when their teachers see them as hard workers, they advance in math at the same rates as nonimmigrant native English speaking peers. Our results demonstrate the importance of considering both language-minority and immigrant status as social dimensions of students’ background that moderate the way that high school teachers’ perceptions shape students’ preparation for college.     

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.     

The optimism trap: Migrants’ educational choices in stratified education systems

Immigrant children's ambitious educational choices have often been linked to their families' high level of optimism and motivation for upward mobility. However, previous research has mostly neglected alternative explanations such as information asymmetries or anticipated discrimination. Moreover, immigrant children's higher dropout rates at the higher secondary and university level suggest that low performing migrant students could have benefitted more from pursuing less ambitious tracks, especially in countries that offer viable vocational alternatives. We examine ethnic minority's educational choices using a sample of academically low performing, lower secondary school students in Germany's highly stratified education system. We find that their families' optimism diverts migrant students from viable vocational alternatives. Information asymmetries and anticipated discrimination do not explain their high educational ambitions. While our findings further support the immigrant optimism hypothesis, we discuss how its effect may have different implications depending on the education system.     

The healthy immigrant (migrant) effect: In search of a better native-born comparison group

This paper evaluates whether immigrants’ initial health advantage over their U.S.-born counterparts results primarily from characteristics correlated with their birth countries (e.g., immigrant culture) or from selective migration (e.g., unobserved characteristics such as motivation and ambition) by comparing recent immigrants’ health to that of recent U.S.-born interstate migrants (“U.S.-born movers”). Using data from the 1999–2013 waves of the March Current Population Survey, I find that, relative to U.S.-born adults (collectively), recent immigrants have a 6.1 percentage point lower probability of reporting their health as fair or poor. Changing the reference group to U.S.-born movers, however, reduces the recent immigrant health advantage by 28%. Similar reductions in the immigrant health advantage occurs in models estimated separately by either race/ethnicity or education level. Models that examine health differences between recent immigrants and U.S.-born movers who both moved for a new job—a primary motivation behind moving for both immigrants and the U.S.-born—show that such immigrants have only a 1.9 percentage point lower probability of reporting their health as fair or poor. Together, the findings suggest that changing the reference group from U.S.-born adults collectively to U.S.-born movers reduces the identified immigrant health advantage, indicating that selective migration plays a significant role in explaining the initial health advantage of immigrants in the United States.     

Don’t ask or tell: Pay secrecy policies in U.S. workplaces

How widespread are workplace rules against discussing wages and salaries in the U.S.? And what are the core correlates of whether or not an employer prohibits or discourages this type of speech? Using a unique dataset that includes a measure of whether workers are prohibited or discouraged from discussing pay, this article investigates the prevalence of pay secrecy policies, and what worker- and workplace-level characteristics are associated with these rules. Key findings reveal that these policies are commonplace, despite being illegal, and that they are concentrated in more “coercive” rather than “enabling” organizations. These more coercive workplaces are disproportionately in the private sector, lack union representation, and have managers that are generally punitive in their approach and unaccommodating of employees. Findings also indicate that the greater discretion pay secrecy provides managers does not result in discriminatory application of these rules to women, racial/ethnic minorities, or immigrants. The article concludes with a call for data collection efforts that would allow researchers to analyze the consequences of this widespread managerial practice.     

The relationship between neighborhood racial concentration and verbal ability: An investigation using the institutional resources model

Relatively few studies examine the relationship between racial residential segregation and educational or cognitive outcomes. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the institutional resources model of neighborhood effects, I investigate one account of how macrostructural arrangements between race, neighborhood segregation, and school quality interact to produce inequalities in test scores. Consistent with the institutional resources model, results suggest that school quality varies across neighborhoods based, in part, on their degree of racial concentration. Indeed, school quality and other school characteristics mediate the relationship between racial concentration and verbal skills, particularly among black males. These findings have implications not only for inequalities in cognitive skills among blacks across residential space, but also between blacks and whites given high levels of residential segregation in the United States. In sum, findings illustrate yet another way in which residential segregation contributes to, and not merely reflects, racial inequalities.     

No place like home? Familism and Latino/a–white differences in college pathways

Recent research has argued that familism, defined as a cultural preference for privileging family goals over individual goals, may discourage some Latino/a youth from applying to and attending college, particularly if they must leave home (Desmond and López Turley, 2009). Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study, we find that Latino/a students and parents indeed have stronger preferences than white students and parents for living at home during college. For students, most differences in preferences for proximate colleges are explained by socioeconomic status, academic achievement and high school/regional differences. Moreover, controlling for socioeconomic background and prior achievement explains most racial/ethnic gaps in college application and attendance among high school graduates, suggesting that familism per se is not a significant deterrent to college enrollment above and beyond these more primary factors. However, results indicate generational differences; cultural factors may contribute to racial/ethnic gaps in parental preferences for children to remain at home.     

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.     

Is immigrant neighborhood inequality less pronounced in suburban areas?

We investigate suburbanization and neighborhood inequality among 14 immigrant groups using census tract data from the 2008–2012 American Community Survey. Immigrant neighborhood inequality is defined here as the degree to which immigrants reside in neighborhoods that are poorer than the neighborhoods in which native whites reside. Using city and suburb Gini coefficients which reflect the distributions of groups across neighborhoods with varying poverty rates, we find that the immigrant-white gap is attenuated in the suburbs. This finding applies to most of the nativity groups and remains after accounting for metropolitan context, the segregation of poverty, and group-specific segregation levels, poverty rates, and acculturation characteristics. Despite reduced neighborhood inequality in the suburbs, large group differences persist. A few immigrant groups achieve residential parity or better vis-à-vis suburban whites while others experience high levels of neighborhood inequality and receive marginal residential returns on suburban location.