Susan K. Brown

The Educational Legacy of Unauthorized Migration: Comparisons Across U.S.-Immigrant Groups in How Parents’ Status Affects Their Offspring†

This research compares several national-origin groups in terms of how parents’ entry, legalization and naturalization (i.e., membership) statuses relate to their childrens educational attainment. In the case of Asian groups, the members of which predominantly come to the United States as permanent legal migrants, we hypothesize (1) that fathers and mothers statuses will be relatively homogenous and few in number and (2) that these will exert minimal net effects on second-generation attainment. For Mexicans, many of whom initially come as temporary unauthorized migrants, we hypothesize (1) that parental status combinations will be heterogeneous and greater in number and (2) that marginal membership statuses will exert negative net effects on education in the second generation. To assess these ideas, we analyze unique intergenerational data from Los Angeles on the young adult members of second-generation national-origin groups and their parents. The findings show that Asian immigrant groups almost universally exhibit similar father–mother migration statuses and high educational attainment among children. By contrast, Mexicans manifest more numerous discrepant father–mother combinations, with those in which the mother remains unauthorized carrying negative implications for childrens schooling. The paper discusses the theoretical and policy implications of the delays in incorporation that result from Mexican Americans needing extra time and resources compared to the members of other groups to overcome their handicap of marginal membership status {i.e., being more likely to enter and remain unauthorized).

Delayed Spatial Assimilation: Multigenerational Incorporation of the Mexican-Origin Population in Los Angeles

This article examines the nature and degree of spatial integration across generations among young adults of Mexican origin in metropolitan Los Angeles. Drawing on a new, unique data set that covers more than four generations of persons of Mexican origin, the research tests the extent to which residential settlement patterns follow two potential trajectories: one specified by a model of traditional spatial assimilation, which views economic and ethnic integration as increasing steadily across generations, or a new model of delayed spatial assimilation, which depicts residential mobility as stalling for a generation or more, in part because of intergenerational family obligations up through the second generation. While individual–level socioeconomic characteristics tend to rise uniformly in support of the classic assimilation model, neighborhood–level evidence shows that substantial spatial integration does not emerge until the third generation—a finding supporting the delayed assimilation model. Also, generational differences in the proportion Anglo of respondents’ neighborhoods outpace differences in median income. These results are consistent with the idea that delayed spatial assimilation involves an additional early phase of incorporation for those of Mexican origin.

Structural Assimilation Revisited: Mexican-Origin Nativity and Cross-Ethnic Primary Ties

Classical assimilation theory postulates that over time, members of immigrant groups will develop more primary ties with native members of the host society. However, lack of data has led most research to rely on the study of either spatial mobility or other secondary variables as proxies of primary ties. Using data from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality, this research examines primary relations, comparing the number of cross-ethnic strong ties among foreign- and native-born generations of persons of Mexican origin in Los Angeles County. The findings indicate that the native-born are substantially more likely to report cross-ethnic ties than immigrants. Spatial variables only partially explain the effect of primary structural assimilation, implying that both primary group and spatial dynamics play important roles in structural incorporation.

The dimensions and degree of second-generation incorporation in US and European cities: A comparative study of inclusion and exclusion

This research compares cities between and within the United States and Europe with respect to their dimensionality and degree of immigrant incorporation. Based on theoretical perspectives about immigrant incorporation, structural differentiation and national incorporation regimes, we hypothesize that more inclusionary (MI) cities will show more dimensions of incorporation and more favorable incorporation outcomes than less inclusionary (LI) places, especially in regard to labor market and spatial variables. We use data from recent major surveys of young adult second-generation groups carried out in Los Angeles, New York, and 11 European cities to assess these ideas. The findings indicate that second-generation immigrants in New York (MI) and in European MI places (i.e. cities in the Netherlands, Sweden and France) show greater dimensionality of incorporation (and thus by implication more pathways of advancement) respectively than is the case in Los Angeles (LI) or in European LI places (i.e. cities in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland). We discuss the significance of these results for understanding how the structures of opportunity confronting immigrants and their children in various places make a difference for the nature and extent of their integration.

THE LINK BETWEEN THE TRANSNATIONAL BEHAVIOUR AND INTEGRATION OF THE SECOND GENERATION IN EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN CITIES Does the context of reception matter

The Link Between the Transnational Behaviour and Integration of the Second Generation in European and American Cities This article investigates the transnational behaviour of the children of immigrants - the second generation - in 11 European and two U.S. cities. We find evidence that transnational practices such as visits to the home country, remittances and use of ethnic media persist only among a minority of the second generation. At a personal level, these second-generation transmigrants are less socio-culturally integrated but more economically integrated in the host country. They also tend to live in those cities and countries with policies that are more assimilationist or exclusionary than multicultural.

Luxury, Necessity, and Anachronistic Workers Does the United States Need Unskilled Immigrant Labor?

This article assesses the labor market implications of less-skilled migration to the United States. It emphasizes how recent social, demographic, and economic trends have reduced the availability of less-skilled native workers, while new low-education immigrant workers compete with other less-skilled immigrants for available low-skilled jobs. Declines in native fertility to substantially below replacement levels, together with native educational upgrading, have substantially reduced the size of the less-skilled native-born labor pool in the past 30 years, even below the level of need. This trend cannot be explained by declines in low-skilled manufacturing employment. Other factors also serve to exacerbate the size of the shortfall in the availability of less-skilled natives, including mismatches in the locations of low-education natives and less-skilled jobs. Nativity differences in health, physical disability, and substance abuse also operate to widen the gap. The resulting void has largely been filled by increasing numbers of less-skilled immigrant workers. These patterns underscore the need for public policies that provide both less-skilled labor and reductions in social and economic inequalities in the United States.

Population Distribution and Suburbanization

This chapter uses census data to study the massive suburbanization or outward spread of population in U.S. metropolitan areas during the twentieth century and initial stages of the twenty-first century. In decade by decade comparisons of the post-World War II period, we find that the size of the suburban population has increased in a rapid continuous pattern. Central cities have shown varied patterns of growth over decades, but no evidence exists that they are typically experiencing major growth in population numbers. Within the suburban rings of metropolitan areas, the major factors affecting their recent growth are previous population density (low = high overall growth) and the in-movement of the foreign born (high in-movement = high overall growth). We also provide some analysis of the suburbanization of the United States since its founding and the growth of suburban areas around metropolitan areas in the less developed world. Recent decades have been characterized in many countries around the world by very high metropolitan population growth, including in their suburban rings.

Conceptualizing Migration: From Internal/International to Kinds of Membership

Current typologies of migration tend to distinguish sharply between international and internal migration. While some defend this cleavage as vital for emphasizing the politics of international migration, others view it as inhibiting the development of theory by unnecessarily privileging the nation-state as a unit of analysis. The conceptual gap between internal and international migration appears to depend on the level of analysis and context. Where migration behavior involves decisions made by individuals or households, international migration generally is explained as another form of long-distance migration. At the macro-analytic level, however, the context of migration matters. If analysts still view migration in behavioral terms or as a response to population growth or development, international migration remains an extension of long-distance migration. But when analysts emphasize migration in legal or political terms, as an outgrowth of the competition of political economies or as a function of the state’s ability to determine who qualifies for membership, international migration is viewed as differing fundamentally from internal migration. One way to clarify the argument would be to shift to a different cleavage, the distinction between authorized and unauthorized migration, as perhaps more salient to migrants now than the difference between internal and international migration. Unauthorized migration can have enormous consequences for migrants, and as the Chinese hukou system of household registration has shown, it is not confined to international movement.

Mexican Immigrant Legalization and Naturalization and Children’s Economic Well-Being

Over the past four decades, Mexican immigration has garnered much of the public and legislative attention devoted to reforming immigration policy in the United States (Bean and Lowell 2004). Part of the reason is that Mexicans have constituted the largest of the country’s recent legal immigrant groups. In 2005, for example, 161,445 Mexicans gained legal permanent residency, or 14.4 percent of the all such persons (Office of Immigration Statistics 2006). But much of the focus falls on Mexicans because they comprise such an overwhelming component of unauthorized migration flows. Roughly 300,000 (net) unauthorized Mexicans established de facto U.S. residency in 2005, bringing the total number of unauthorized Mexicans to 6.2 million, or 56 percent of all unauthorized persons in the country (Passel 2006). These numbers dwarf those from any other nation. Moreover, many observers have long argued that policies to curtail or “regularize” unauthorized migration should be adopted before changes in legal immigration policy are considered, thus ensuring that unauthorized Mexican migration occupies a prominent place in any debate over immigration policy (U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform 1994).

The Implications of Native-Born Fertility and Other Socio-Demographic Changes for Less-Skilled U.S. Immigration

This paper examines the degree to which fertility and socio-demographic changes are reducing the size of the U.S.-born less-skilled working-age population in the United States. By less-skilled, we mean persons with a high school diploma or less. By consequences of fertility change, we mean the repercussions of both high fertility in past decades (the Baby Boom) and below replacement native-born fertility in more recent decades. By consequences of socio-demographic change, we refer to the rise in the proportion of the population starting and finishing college. In the context of evidence indicating that the relative size of economic sectors hiring less-skilled workers has not diminished in recent decades (with the exception of manufacturing employment), we suggest these demographic and social changes imply that the country will continue to rely on less-skilled immigrant workers. We assess this idea based on analyses of U.S. Census and American Community Survey data for decennial census years starting in 1970 and running through 2010. The results show a net decline of more than 7 million persons in the U.S.-born less-skilled working-age population since 1990, and a looming decline of more than 12 million between now and 2030. Educational upgrading, especially among women, contributes a notable share to these shifts, but so does earlier high fertility (the aging of the Baby Boomers) and more recent low native fertility. Interestingly, the number of less-skilled unauthorized immigrants living in the United States in 2010 is smaller than the decline in the size of the less-skilled U.S.-born working-age population over the same period.