This project will examine the social contexts, defined at the neighborhood or household level, in which the children of immigrant parents are being reared in the U.S. and identify the family/household, parental and metropolitan characteristics associated with these contexts. Theoretically, it is guided by the conceptualization in the literature of three distinct patterns of incorporation: conventional assimilation, downward assimilation (or racialized incorporation), and the pluralist alternative. Since no one of these patterns is adequate for a full understanding of the incorporation of contemporary immigrant groups, our major goal is to identify more precisely the circumstances under which each pattern comes into play. To achieve project goals, both microdata and summary files from the 2000 U.S. Census will be analyzed, drawing upon the investigators'previous work on measures of child well-being and on locational-attainment models. Multi-level models of household and neighborhood outcomes will be estimated for 36 different immigrant groups, as well as for the children in the native families of all the major race groups and Hispanics. These models will include parental, household, and metropolitan characteristics as independent variables and will allow the examination of effects specific to kinds of metropolitan areas through interactions between metropolitan-level variables and lower-level ones. To analyze neighborhood-level outcomes, the investigators have received permission to use the facilities of the New York City Research Data Center to link PUMS and census-tract records, which will extend the Alba-Logan locational attainment models theoretically by using country-specific groups and methodologically by estimating neighborhood characteristics without the focal household included. We will analyze in particular the factors that lead the children of immigrants to grow up in socially advantaged or disadvantaged households and neighborhoods. Since limited economic resources and residence in poverty-stricken neighborhoods have implications for access to health care and exposure to health risks, the findings will provide improved understanding of important determinants of health outcomes and identify children in specific groups in particular metropolitan areas that are at risk for adverse health outcomes.
| Alba, Richard; Deane, Glenn; Denton, Nancy et al. (2014) The role of immigrant enclaves for Latino residential inequalities. J Ethn Migr Stud 40:1-20 |
