Are Age Differences Between Partners Related To Gender and Generations Among Middle-Aged And Older Asian Americans?

Previous research has shown that women who immigrate to the United States tend to partner with much older spouses. However, most studies have focused on young people and first-generations. Spousal age differences among older Asian Americans with different generations have not been well studied. Using data from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement survey (2013-2019), we employed the segmented assimilation theory to test 7,064 married middle-aged and older (50+) Asian Americans. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to understand the association between spousal age differences and individual background, including gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, generation, and marriage types. Of the 3,342 men, 20% were married to wives at least 6 years younger and 2% were married to wives at least 6 years older. Men who were Japanese or had inter-ethnical marriages were more likely to marry women at least 6 years older. Men who were Indian, Vietnamese, or having an interracial marriage were more likely to marry women at least 6 years younger. Of the 3,722 women, 3% were married to husbands at least six years younger and 19% were married to husbands at least six years older. Women who were Indian or Vietnamese were more likely to marry men at least six years older. Women who had a high school diploma or were third-plus generation were more likely to marry men at least 6 years younger. The findings reflect the complexity of Asian senior marriage and provide insight for policymakers to design new or improved social integration programs for senior immigrants.

Re-Emerging Inequality: Narrow Economic Gaps between Immigrant and Non-Immigrant Offspring Widen Over the Life Course

Scholarship investigating economic disparities between immigrants and non- immigrants posits that immigrants’ income disadvantages decline over time and across generations, but life course approaches contend that inequalities between groups widen as individuals age. Using data from the NLSY 1997, I show that the relative economic positions of children of Latino immigrants shift over the life course when compared to children of White and Black non-immigrants. Average family income among children of Latino immigrants resembles that of the children of White non-immigrants at age 25. But children of White non-immigrants experience faster income growth as they age, tending to outrank the children of Latino immigrants by the early thirties. Accounting for intergenerational legacies of disadvantage shows that children of Latino immigrants initially outrank the children of White non-immigrants from similar economic backgrounds – an “intergenerational premium” – but this intergenerational premium erodes with age. Contra the segmented assimilation hypothesis, children of Latino immigrants maintain favorable positions relative to children of Black non-immigrants regardless of parental income. These findings suggest that the temporal patterns of economic convergence between immigrants and non-immigrants are not linear. Though intergenerational progress is substantial, the life course is a critical period through which inequalities can be made anew.

Perceptions of success among working-class children of immigrants in three cities

This article examines the subjective understanding of success among members of three groups of children of immigrants from Mexico, North Africa and Turkey, in Dallas, Paris and Berlin respectively, by accounting for their educational and early labor market experiences. We utilize neo-assimilation and segmented assimilation theories and highlight their divergence with regards to downward assimilation and frames of reference. We focus on the working-class children of immigrants in the three settings, as they are at the highest risk of downward mobility. We find that frames of reference play a significant role in shaping the subjective understandings of success among the three groups. Despite their disadvantaged position, Mexican Americans in Dallas regard their experiences as successful given their significant departure from their parents’ low status. French North Africans in Paris, on the other hand, emphasize their limited ability to overcome the restrictions imposed on them by French society and especially schools. Doing so, they compare themselves to their French peers who do not have an immigrant background. Children of immigrants from Turkey in Berlin, by comparison, encounter labor market discrimination but feel successful relative to their parents’ generation. We find that the children of immigrants in our study rely on members of their social networks who impact their labor market experiences as their frame of reference. When they compare themselves to their parents or earlier waves of immigrants, the children of immigrants perceive their accomplishments in a positive light. When they compare themselves to mainstream society, however, they emphasize persisting inequalities. Our conclusions emphasize the importance of understanding subjective experiences of success and mobility that have been largely ignored in the migration literature.

Procedural (In)Justice as Inclusivity and Marginalization: Evidence from a Longitudinal Sample of Mexican-American Adolescents

Objectives: Treatment by law enforcement officers, as representatives of the state that interact with individual citizens, may signal to individuals their political and social inclusion within society. Hispanics, as the largest minority group in the country that oftentimes must navigate two cultural identities, may be especially sensitive to the treatment of police. We test the group engagement model’s implication that procedural justice—or lack thereof—may promote or hinder attachment to the United States and/or Mexico among Latino/a adolescents and young adults. Methods: Using a fixed effects panel design with a subsample of Mexican Americans from the Pathways to Desistance Study, we examine whether changes in subjective procedural justice evaluations of the police are related to changes in National identification. Results: Changes in procedural justice perceptions are significantly related to changes in Mexican identification, whereas procedural justice is not related to changes in Anglo identification. Although, consistent with segmented assimilation theory, the relationships between changes in procedural justice and Mexican/Anglo identification may be stronger among participants born in the United States. Conclusions: The findings are generally consistent with the group engagement model of procedural justice and suggest procedural injustice may alienate Hispanics.

Immigrants, Crime, and the American Dream: Testing a Segmented Assimilation Theory of Crime

The immigrant-crime relationship is often misunderstood and highly complex. To date, criminological research has largely ignored theory testing of this relationship. This paper examines the extant literature on intergenerational offending amongst immigrant youth and subsequently tests whether the segmented assimilation theory- a theory borrowed from the interdisciplinary social sciences- adequately explains immigrant offending. The study uses data ( N = 1,267) from the Pathways to Desistance Study (PTD) to examine intergenerational differences in changes to offending between immigrant youth and the native-born. The analyses largely reveal that the theory, based on its original assumptions, fails to adequately explain youth offending, and that the models provide more support for the straight-line theory of assimilation in regards to delinquency. Limitations and recommendations are discussed and proffered, respectively.

Religious discrimination in young Muslim assimilation in Spain: Contributions to Portes and Rumbaut’s segmented assimilation theory

This article aims to consider the role of religion in the integration process of children born to immigrants in host societies (second generation) in Spain using the theory of segmented assimilation of Portes and Rumbaut and Portes, Aparicio and Haller. It is based on an exploratory qualitative research project conducted in a medium-sized city in Catalonia that examined the integration of young people of different origins and the role religion played in this process. To do so, we proffer a religious discrimination hypothesis: a scenario in which Islam, but not other religions, can become a significant barrier to positive assimilation. According to the results, this ‘religious stigma’ scenario occurs in the majority of the young Muslims who were interviewed and across many aspects of their lives.