Unequal From the Start? Poverty Across Immigrant Generations of Hispanic Children

Recent cohorts of U.S. children increasingly consist of immigrants or the immediate descendants of immigrants, a demographic shift that has been implicated in high rates of child poverty. Analyzing data from the 2014–2018 Current Population Survey and using the U.S. Census Bureau's Supplemental Poverty Measure, we describe differences in child poverty rates across immigrant generations and assess how these disparities are rooted in generational differences in the prevalence and impact of key poverty risk factors. Our estimates show that poverty rates among Hispanic children are very high, particularly among first-generation children and second-generation children with two foreign-born parents. Low family employment is the most significant risk factor for poverty, but the prevalence of this risk varies little across immigrant generations. Differences in parental education account for the greatest share of observed intergenerational disparities in child poverty. Supplemental comparisons with third+-generation non-Hispanic White children underscore the disadvantages faced by all Hispanic children, highlighting the continued salience of race and ethnicity within the U.S. stratification system. Understanding the role of immigrant generation vis-à-vis other dimensions of inequality has significant policy implications given that America's population continues to grow more diverse along multiple social axes.

Generational status, social capital and family engagement in immigrant families

This study highlighted the importance of social capital in understanding the disparity in family engagement across immigrant generations. Using the national representative data, the ELS:2002, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine the relationships among generational status, social capital, and home- and school-based family engagement. The results suggested that social capital played an important role in immigrant home- and schoolbased family engagement. The findings of specific pathways through social capital in and outside the family to home- and school-based family engagement might make a tangible contribution to understanding of family engagement and immigrant generations. Further, the present research suggested that immigrant families were not only constrained from participating in their children's education, but also had their own strengths for family engagement such as positive expectations for and extensive communications with their children.

The Space of the New Ethnic Neighborhood: Polka Festival as Imagined Community

Following the spatial turn in cultural studies, ethnic space is understood as a cultural category, constructed by discourse and determined by capital, within which people create their own narratives. This essay explores the construction of ethnic space and identity in the phenomenon of the Polish American polka music festival. Framed by the attention to the process of “production of space” (Lefebvre 1991), the essay presumes that new conceptualizations of spatiality assume space is no longer treated as something given, a pre-existing territory, or locale. The case study of the ethnic music festival is an ideal place for examining the invention of place, because it is not located in a fixed space, but in a movable community traveling from festival to festival. The polka festival circuit is attended by a core community of polka boosters, many of whom travel from event to event in vacation motor homes, with attendees setting up "neighborhoods" of motor homes that include front lawns, outdoor kitchens, and "streets." Most bring lawn signs, street signs, flags and other public signs of Polish American identity, recreating—this essay argues—the urban ethnic neighborhood of previous immigrant generations. Polish American ethnic identity for this group of participants is located and recreated in an imagined community that it creates, dismantles, moves and recreates in a mobile spatiality of ethnic belonging.

Does Place Matter? Burial Decisions of Muslims in Canada

This paper is concerned with the complex relationship between immigration, religion, burial decisions, and a sense of belonging. Drawing upon a case study of Muslims in London, Ontario, Canada, we examine Islamic funeral and burial services available in the city and the preferred burial locations of its Muslim communities. Our interviews with different immigrant generations of Muslims show that participants, regardless of their immigrant generation, prefer London as a location of burial for themselves and their loved ones. We argue that four major factors at the structural and individual level shape the preference of study participants with respect to the location of burial: access to an Islamic cemetery and Islamic funeral services; an established Muslim population in the city; relation to and interpretation of religious requirements; and a sense of belonging to Canada. We discuss the findings in relation to multiculturalism and recognition of cultural and religious differences.

The Contours and Correlates of Child Poverty Across Immigrant Generations

Recent cohorts of U.S. children increasingly consist of immigrants or the immediate descendants of immigrants, a demographic shift that has been implicated in high rates of child poverty. Analyzing data from the 2014-2018 Current Population Survey (CPS) and using the U.S. Census Bureau’s Supplementary Poverty Measure, we describe differences in child poverty rates across immigrant generations (first-, second-, and third+-generation immigrant children) and how these are rooted in generational differences in the prevalence and impact of key poverty risk factors. We find that (1) poverty rates among Hispanic children are very high, particularly among first- and second- generation with two foreign-born parents children; (2) limited parental employment is by far the greatest risk factor for child poverty compared to having a young or poorly educated parent, living in a single-headed family or disadvantaged place of residence; (3) inter-generational differences in risk factor prevalence explain non-trivial shares of corresponding child poverty gaps; and (4) the patterns observed among the Hispanic population are moderated by race and ethnicity. Understanding the intersection of poverty risks, immigrant generation, and race has significant policy implications has America’s population continues to grow more diverse along multiple social axes.

Towards Spatial Assimilation? Contextual Mobility and Neighborhood Attainment among Norwegian Immigrant Descendants

We study contextual mobility and neighborhood attainment among immigrant descendants using administrative data from Norway. We find that immigrant descendants often remain in adult neighborhood contexts—characterized by relative economic disadvantage and comparatively few native-origin residents—that largely resemble their childhood neighborhoods. Intergenerational stability is strongest among descendants of immigrants from Pakistan, the Middle East, and Africa. Further, group-level differences in individual socioeconomic attainment, family background, and characteristics of their childhood neighborhoods account for a substantial part of the adult native-immigrant gaps in neighborhood-level economic composition, but less so for neighborhood-level proximity to native-origin residents. The role of childhood residential segregation is most important in accounting for adult native-immigrant gaps in neighborhood attainment. Our findings offer only partial support for spatial assimilation theory—which predicts that acculturation and socioeconomic progress will lead to a convergence in neighborhood profiles relative to natives across immigrant generations—but may reflect external barriers in the housing market or persistent in-group preferences for (co-ethnic) immigrant neighbors.