Welcoming
From Patrick to John F.: Ethnic Names and Occupational Success in the Last Era of Mass Migration
Joshua Goldstein & Guy Stecklov
American Sociological Review, February 2016, Pages 85-106
Abstract:
Taking advantage of historical census records that include full first and last names, we apply a new approach to measuring the effect of cultural assimilation on economic success for the children of the last great wave of immigrants to the United States. We created a quantitative index of ethnic distinctiveness of first names and show the consequences of ethnic-sounding names for the occupational achievement of the adult children of European immigrants. We find a consistent tendency for the children of Irish, Italian, German, and Polish immigrants with more “American”-sounding names to have higher occupational achievement. About one-third of this effect appears to be due to social class differences in name-giving, and the remaining two-thirds to signaling effects of the names themselves. An exception is found for Russian, predominantly Jewish, immigrants, where we find a positive effect of ethnic naming on occupational achievement. The divergent effects of our new measure of cultural assimilation, sometimes hurting and sometimes helping, lend historical empirical support to more recent theories of the advantages of different paths to assimilation. The effects of ethnic first names are also found for a restricted analysis of recognizably ethnic last names, suggesting that immigrants’ success depended on being perceived as making an effort to assimilate rather than hiding their origins.
---------------------
When Threat Mobilizes: Immigration Enforcement and Latino Voter Turnout
Ariel White
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Immigration enforcement, and deportation in particular, has been shown to have social and psychological effects on the non-deported as well, but its political effects have gone largely unexamined. I use the staggered implementation of Secure Communities, an information-sharing program between the federal government and local law enforcement, to estimate the short-term effects of stricter immigration enforcement on Latino voter turnout. A difference-in-differences analysis indicates that enrollment in Secure Communities led to an increase in county-level Latino voter turnout of 2–3 percentage points. This relatively large effect appears due to greater Latino activism in the wake of program implementation, rather than individuals responding to particular police interactions. These results extend the existing literature on mobilization in response to threat, demonstrate that policies can have far-reaching and unexpected political implications, and suggest that the current immigration debate may have major consequences for the future makeup of the American electorate.
---------------------
Enhanced Citizenship Verification and Children's Medicaid Coverage
James Marton, Angela Snyder & Mei Zhou
Economic Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article examines a potential unintended consequence of the mandated Medicaid citizenship verification requirements of the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act (DRA). We investigate whether or not these new rules led to an increase in the Medicaid exit rate among enrollees using state administrative data from Georgia. We do this by comparing the exit rate for children enrolled in Medicaid whose first coverage recertification occurs just after implementation of the DRA (which we refer to as a “high impact” first recertification) with those whose first recertification occurs just prior (which we refer to as a “low impact” first recertification). Our analysis suggests that children in the high-impact first recertification group were about 2 percentage points more likely to exit Medicaid than those in the low-impact group. Furthermore, these additional exits occurred in racial and ethnic groups more likely to be citizens than noncitizens and prereform estimates suggest that there were very few (roughly 0.10%) noncitizen Medicaid enrollees to begin with. Taken together, our results suggest that the DRA-enhanced citizenship verification rules led to an increase in Medicaid disenrollment, and thus a reduction in coverage, among citizens.
---------------------
Citizenship as Privilege and Social Identity: Implications for Psychological Distress
Gilbert Gee et al.
American Behavioral Scientist, forthcoming
Abstract:
Citizenship is both a system of privilege and a source of social identity. This study examines whether there are disparities in psychological distress between citizens and noncitizens, and whether these disparities may be explained by markers of social disadvantage (e.g., poverty, discrimination) or perceptions of success in the United States (i.e., subjective social status). We analyze data from the Asian subsample (n = 2,095) of the National Latino and Asian American Study. The data show that noncitizens report greater psychological distress compared with naturalized citizens and native-born citizens after accounting for sociodemographics (e.g., age, gender, Asian subgroup), socioeconomic characteristics (education, employment, income-to-poverty ratio), immigration (e.g., interview language, years in the United States, acculturative stress), health care visits, and everyday discrimination. Preliminary evidence suggests that subjective social status may explain some of the disparities between naturalized citizen and noncitizen Asian Americans.
---------------------
Immigrant Diversity and Complex Problem Solving
Abigail Cooke & Thomas Kemeny
U.S. Census Bureau Working Paper, January 2016
Abstract:
In the growing literature exploring the links between immigrant diversity and worker productivity, recent evidence strongly suggests that diversity generates productivity improvements. However, even the most careful extant empirical work remains at some remove from the mechanisms that theory says underlie this relationship: interpersonal interaction in the service of complex problem solving. This paper aims to "stress-test" these theoretical foundations, by observing how the relationship between diversity and productivity varies across workers differently engaged in complex problem solving and interaction. Using a uniquely comprehensive matched employer-employee dataset for the United States between 1991 and 2008, this paper shows that growing immigrant diversity inside cities and workplaces offers much stronger benefits for workers intensively engaged in various forms of complex problem solving, including tasks involving high levels of innovation, creativity, and STEM. Moreover, such effects are considerably stronger for those whose work requires high levels of both problem solving and interaction.
---------------------
David Fielding
British Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article builds on existing studies of the long-run persistence of geographical variation in tolerance towards other ethnicities. Using English data, the study tests whether the persistent characteristic is an attitude towards a specific ethnic group, or is an underlying cultural trait of which the attitude towards a specific group is just one expression. It finds evidence for the latter, identifying geographical variation in anti-immigrant sentiment in the twenty-first century that is correlated with patterns of immigrant settlement in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, despite the fact that modern immigrant groups are quite different from those in the Middle Ages.
---------------------
How Do They Do It? The Immigrant Paradox in the Transition to Adulthood
Sandra Hofferth & Ui Jeong Moon
Social Science Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
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.
---------------------
Reading and Math Achievement among Low-Income Urban Latino Youth: The Role of Immigration
Katarina Guttmannova
American Journal of Education, February 2016, Pages 199-246
Abstract:
Using data from a household-based, stratified random sample of youth and their caregivers from low-income inner-city neighborhoods, this study examined the variability in the academic achievement of Latino youth. The results indicate a significant advantage in reading achievement for first- and second-generation immigrant youth, as compared to the third generation, which persisted even after controlling for important child, parenting, human capital, neighborhood, and demographic covariates. Follow-up analyses within the subsample of the first- and second-generation youth indicate that more recent arrival to the United States predicted higher reading achievement. Yet, there was no evidence of a similar immigrant advantage in math. The implications of these findings, limitations of the present study, and directions for future research are discussed.
---------------------
Early Cognitive Skills of Mexican-Origin Children: The Roles of Parental Nativity and Legal Status
Nancy Landale et al.
Social Science Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
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.
---------------------
Intergenerational Persistence of Health in the U.S.: Do Immigrants Get Healthier as they Assimilate?
Mevlude Akbulut-Yuksel & Adriana Kugler
NBER Working Paper, February 2016
Abstract:
It is well known that a substantial part of income and education is passed on from parents to children, generating substantial persistence in socio-economic status across generations. In this paper, we examine whether another form of human capital, health, is also largely transmitted from generation to generation, contributing to limited socio-economic mobility. Using data from the NLSY, we first present new evidence on intergenerational transmission of health outcomes in the U.S., including weight, height, the body mass index (BMI), asthma and depression for both natives and immigrants. We show that both native and immigrant children inherit a prominent fraction of their health status from their parents, and that, on average, immigrants experience higher persistence than natives in weight and BMI. We also find that mothers’ education decreases children’s weight and BMI for natives, while single motherhood increases weight and BMI for both native and immigrant children. Finally, we find that the longer immigrants remain in the U.S., the less intergenerational persistence there is and the more immigrants look like native children. Unfortunately, the more generations immigrant families remain in the U.S., the more children of immigrants resemble natives’ higher weights, higher BMI and increased propensity to suffer from asthma.
---------------------
Acculturation and Diabetes Risk in the Mexican American Mano a Mano Cohort
Chelsea Anderson et al.
American Journal of Public Health, March 2016, Pages 547-549
Objectives: To investigate the association between acculturation and diabetes risk in the Mexican American Mano a Mano (hand to hand) Cohort.
Methods: We recruited 15 975 men and women in the Houston, Texas, area from 2001 to 2014. We used language use, birth country, and duration of US residence (among Mexico-born) to assess acculturation. Participants self-reported a physician’s diagnosis of diabetes during annual follow-up over an average of 5.4 (range = 1–13) years. Self-reported diabetes status was validated in medical records for a subset of 235 participants with 98% agreement.
Results: Diabetes risk was higher among immigrants with 15 to 19, 20 to 24, and 25 or more years (relative risk = 1.47; 95% confidence interval = 1.07, 2.01) of US residence, relative to those with less than 5 years. Neither language acculturation nor birth country was significantly associated with diabetes risk.
Conclusions: Among participants born in Mexico, diabetes risk increased with longer duration of US residence.
---------------------
An “immigrant paradox” for adolescent externalizing behavior? Evidence from a national sample
Christopher Salas-Wright et al.
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, January 2016, Pages 27-37
Purpose: Recent decades have witnessed a rise in the number of immigrant children in the United States (US) and concomitant concerns regarding externalizing behaviors such as crime, violence, and drug misuse by immigrant adolescents. The objective of the present study was to systematically compare the prevalence of externalizing behaviors and migration-related factors among immigrant and US-born adolescents in the US.
Method: Data on 12 to 17 year olds (Weighted N in thousands = 25,057) from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) R-DAS between 2002 and 2009 were used. The R-DAS online analytic software was employed. Prevalence estimates and 95 % confidence intervals were calculated adjusting for the complex survey sampling design.
Results: Compared to their US-born counterparts, immigrant adolescents — particularly those between the ages of 15 and 17 years — are significantly less likely to be involved in externalizing behaviors. In addition, later age of arrival and fewer years spent in the US were associated with reduced odds of externalizing behavior. Supplementary analyses indicate that the link between nativity and externalizing behavior may be primarily driven by differences between US-born and immigrant youth who self-identify as non-Hispanic black or Hispanic. Immigrant adolescents are also more likely to report cohesive parental relationships, positive school engagement, and disapproving views with respect to adolescent substance use.
Conclusions: This study extends prior research on the “immigrant paradox” to externalizing behavior among adolescents using a nationally representative data source. Findings highlight the importance of examining age, age of arrival, duration, and race/ethnicity in the study of nativity and externalizing.
---------------------
Rolling off the Tongue into the Top-of-the-Head: Explaining Language Effects on Public Opinion
Efrén Pérez
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Growing evidence shows that mass opinion varies by interview language, yet modest theory exists to explain this result. I propose a framework where language impacts survey response by making some political concepts more mentally accessible. I claim that concepts vary by how associated they are with certain languages, which means people are more likely to acquire a construct when it is tied to the tongue one speaks. Hence, recalling concepts from memory should be easier when the language a construct is linked to matches the tongue one interviews in, thereby intensifying people’s opinions. I test my theory by manipulating the interview language in two U.S. surveys of English/Spanish bilingual Latino adults. I generally find that language influences the accessibility of concepts. For example, subjects report higher opinion levels for concepts that are tied more to their interview language, such as American identity among English interviewees. Subjects who interview in English are also less likely to refuse completing items measuring knowledge about U.S. politics, and more likely to answer them quickly. Items reflecting constructs that are highly labile (e.g. anti-Obama affect) or very crystallized (e.g., partisanship) do not display these patterns. I then rule out that language effects are mostly mediated by a heightened sense of anxiety, anger, pride or efficacy that emerges when bilingual subjects interview in one of their languages.
---------------------
Marko Dragojevic & Howard Giles
Human Communication Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Two experiments examined the effects of processing fluency — that is, the ease with which speech is processed — on language attitudes toward native- and foreign-accented speech. Participants listened to an audio recording of a story read in either a Standard American English (SAE) or Punjabi English (PE) accent. They heard the recording either free of noise or mixed with background white noise of various intensity levels. Listeners attributed more solidarity (but equal status) to the SAE than the PE accent. Compared to quieter listening conditions, noisier conditions reduced processing fluency, elicited a more negative affective reaction, and resulted in more negative language attitudes. Processing fluency and affect mediated the effects of noise on language attitudes. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications are discussed.
---------------------
Brian Duncan & Stephen Trejo
NBER Working Paper, February 2016
Abstract:
Because of data limitations, virtually all studies of the later-generation descendants of immigrants rely on subjective measures of ethnic self-identification rather than arguably more objective measures based on the countries of birth of the respondent and his ancestors. In this context, biases can arise from “ethnic attrition” (e.g., U.S.-born individuals who do not self-identify as Hispanic despite having ancestors who were immigrants from a Spanish-speaking country). Analyzing 2003-2013 data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), this study shows that such ethnic attrition is sizeable and selective for the second- and third-generation populations of key Hispanic and Asian national origin groups. In addition, the results indicate that ethnic attrition generates measurement biases that vary across groups in direction as well as magnitude, and that correcting for these biases is likely to raise the socioeconomic standing of the U.S.-born descendants of most Hispanic immigrants relative to their Asian counterparts.
---------------------
Anna Katarzyna Bobak, Andrew James Dowsett & Sarah Bate
PLoS ONE, February 2016
Abstract:
Photographic identity documents (IDs) are commonly used despite clear evidence that unfamiliar face matching is a difficult and error-prone task. The current study set out to examine the performance of seven individuals with extraordinary face recognition memory, so called “super recognisers” (SRs), on two face matching tasks resembling border control identity checks. In Experiment 1, the SRs as a group outperformed control participants on the “Glasgow Face Matching Test”, and some case-by-case comparisons also reached significance. In Experiment 2, a perceptually difficult face matching task was used: the “Models Face Matching Test”. Once again, SRs outperformed controls both on group and mostly in case-by-case analyses. These findings suggest that SRs are considerably better at face matching than typical perceivers, and would make proficient personnel for border control agencies.
---------------------
Vincent Ferraro
Journal of Quantitative Criminology, March 2016, Pages 23-45
Objectives: Drawing from a social disorganization perspective, this research addresses the effect of immigration on crime within new destinations—places that have experienced significant recent growth in immigration over the last two decades.
Methods: Fixed effects regression analyses are run on a sample of n = 1252 places, including 194 new destinations, for the change in crime from 2000 to the 2005–2007 period. Data are drawn from the 2000 Decennial Census, 2005–2007 American Community Survey, and the Uniform Crime Reports. Places included in the sample had a minimum population of 20,000 as of the 2005-07 ACS. New destinations are defined as places where the foreign-born have increased by 150 % or more since 1990 and with a minimum foreign-born population of 1000 in 2007.
Results: Results indicate new destinations experienced greater declines in crime, relative to the rest of the sample. Moreover, new destinations with greater increases in foreign-born experienced greater declines in their rates of crime. Additional predictors of change in crime include change in socioeconomic disadvantage, the adult-child ratio, and population size.
Conclusions: Results fail to support a disorganization view of the effect of immigration on crime in new destinations and are more in line with the emerging community resource perspective. Limitations and suggestions for future directions are discussed.
---------------------
Securing Communities or Profits? The Effect of Federal-Local Partnerships on Immigration Enforcement
Jillian Jaeger
State Politics & Policy Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Leading theories of local responses to immigration claim that ideology drives policy differences. However, these studies focus exclusively on policy adoption, neglecting whether or not ideological preferences also govern the extent to which local actors choose to cooperate with federal immigration initiatives. To account for this shortcoming, I use zero-inflated negative binomial regression to assess county-level deportations resulting from local participation in the Secure Communities program. I find that existing financial and structural resources as well as financial incentives are strong determinants of county deportation levels. Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that conservative counties produce more deportations. Instead, the size of a county’s policing budget moderates the relationship between ideological orientations and deportation outcomes. With federal-local policy partnerships on the rise, these findings provide an important foundation for developing a better framework to understand the implications of such partnerships for policy implementation. In short, this article suggests that although policy adoption may be a politicized process, local compliance with federal initiatives is highly dependent on the resource constraints and incentives of the actors involved.
---------------------
Conspicuous Consumption among Hispanics: Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey
Igor Ryabov
Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, forthcoming
Abstract:
Ethnic disparities in consumption patterns (clothing, jewelry, cars, etc.) have been a focus of social research for decades, yet little attention has been paid to conspicuous consumption and the relative importance of ethnicity and social class as its determinants. In an attempt to fill in this gap and to deconstruct the monolithic category of Hispanic consumers, the present study used nationally-representative data from the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) to investigate the expenditure patterns of Hispanic consumer households, with a special focus on conspicuous consumption. On the theoretical plane, this study evaluated two alternative explanations of the propensity to consume conspicuous items among ethnic minority households – conspicuous consumption and compensatory consumption theories. The findings demonstrated that, as compared to other Hispanic groups, Cuban Americans tended to spend less on conspicuous items. With the exception of Cuban Americans, Hispanics residing in more affluent neighbourhoods were prone to allocate greater shares of their expenditure to conspicuous goods. We also found a positive association between sociolinguistic assimilation into Anglo culture and conspicuous consumption of Hispanic households.
---------------------
Staying in STEM or Changing Course: Do Natives and Immigrants Pursue the Path of Least Resistance?
Siqi Han
Social Science Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper examines why Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields are becoming “immigrant” fields of study as native students shift from STEM fields to law, medicine and business. Using data from the 2010 National Survey of College Graduates, the analyses find that foreign college-educated immigrants with STEM degrees tend to remain in STEM fields, while natives are more likely to shift from STEM fields to law, medicine and business in graduate school. Among those who moved into law, medicine and business, the gains in earnings are larger for natives than for foreign educated immigrants. These results have important implications for the social mobility of highly educated natives and immigrants.
---------------------
Party Identification, Contact, Contexts, and Public Attitudes toward Illegal Immigration
Timothy Gravelle
Public Opinion Quarterly, Spring 2016, Pages 1-25
Abstract:
Illegal immigration is a contentious issue on the American policy agenda. To understand the sources of public attitudes toward immigration, social scientists have focused attention on political factors such as party identification; they have also drawn on theories of intergroup contact to argue that contact with immigrants shapes immigration attitudes. Absent direct measures, contextual measures such as respondents’ ethnic milieu or proximity to salient geographic features (such as borders) have been used as proxies of contact. Such a research strategy still leaves the question unanswered – is it contact or context that really matters? Further, which context, and for whom? This article evaluates the effects of party identification, personal contact with undocumented immigrants, and contextual measures (county Hispanic population and proximity to the US–Mexico border) on American attitudes toward illegal immigration. It finds that contextual factors moderate the effects of political party identification on attitudes toward illegal immigration; personal contact has no effect. These findings challenge the assumption that contextual measures act as proxies for interpersonal contact.
---------------------
Rights, Economics, or Family? Frame Resonance, Political Ideology, and the Immigrant Rights Movement
Irene Bloemraad, Fabiana Silva & Kim Voss
Social Forces, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although social movement scholars in the United States have long ignored activism over immigration, this movement raises important theoretical and empirical questions, especially given many immigrants' lack of citizenship. Is the rights “master” frame, used extensively by other US social movements, persuasive in making claims for noncitizens? If not, which other movement frames resonate with the public? We leverage survey experiments — largely the domain of political scientists and public opinion researchers — to examine how much human/citizenship rights, economics, and family framing contests shape Californians' views about legalization and immigrants' access to public benefits. We pay particular attention to how potentially distinct “publics,” or subgroups, react, finding significant differences in frame resonance between groups distinguished by political ideology. However, alternative framings resonate with — at best — one political subgroup and, dauntingly, frames that resonate with one group sometimes alienate others. While activists and political theorists may hope that human rights appeals can expand American notions of membership, such a frame does not help the movement build support for legalization. Instead, the most expansive change in legalization attitudes occurs when framed as about family unity, but this holds only among self-reported conservatives. These findings underscore the challenges confronting the immigrant movement and the need to reevaluate the assumption that historically progressive rights language is effective for immigrant claims-making.
---------------------
Out of context: The absence of geographic variation in US immigrants' perceptions of discrimination
Daniel Hopkins et al.
Politics, Groups, and Identities, forthcoming
Abstract:
Immigrants' perceptions of discrimination (PD) correlate strongly with various political outcomes, including group consciousness and partisan identity. Here, we examine the hypothesis that immigrants' PD vary across US localities, as threatened responses by native-born residents may increase perceived discrimination among neighboring immigrants. We also consider the alternative hypothesis that barriers to the expression and detection of discrimination decouple native-born attitudes from immigrants' perceptions about their treatment. We test these claims by analyzing three national surveys of almost 11,000 first-generation Latino, Asian, and Muslim immigrants. The results indicate that immigrants' PD hardly vary across localities. While anti-immigrant attitudes are known to be geographically clustered, immigrants' PD prove not to be. This mismatch helps us narrow the potential causes of perceived discrimination, and it suggests the value of further research into perceived discrimination's consequences for immigrants' social and political incorporation.