During the early twentieth century, industrial-era European immigrants entered the United States with lower levels of education than the U.S. average. However, empirical research has yielded unclear and inconsistent evidence about the extent and pace of their integration, leaving openings for arguments that contest the narrative that these groups experienced rapid integration and instead assert that educational deficits among lower-status groups persisted across multiple generations. Here, we advance another argument, that European immigrants may have 'leapfrogged' or exceeded U.S.-born non-Hispanic white attainment by the third generation. To assess these ideas, we reconstituted three-generation families by linking individuals across the 1940 Census, years 1973, 1979, 1981-90 of the Current Population Survey, the 2000 Census, and years 2001-2017 of the American Community Survey. Results show that most European immigrant groups not only caught up with U.S.-born whites by the second generation, but surpassed them, and this advantage further increased in the third generation. This research provides a new understanding of the time to integration for 20th century European immigrant groups by showing that they integrated at a faster pace than previously thought, indicative of a process of accelerated upward mobility.
-
Using Linked Data to Investigate True Intergenerational Change: Three Generations Over Seven Decades
August 2018
Working Paper Number:
carra-2018-09
It is widely thought that immigrants and their families undergo profound cultural and socioeconomic changes as a consequence of coming into contact with U.S. society, but the way this occurs remains unclear and controversial due in large part to data limitations. In this paper, we provide proof of concept for analyses using linked data that allow us to compare outcomes across more 'exact' family generations. Specifically, we are able to follow immigrant parents and their children and grandchildren across seven decades using census and survey data from 1940 to 2014. We describe the data and linkage methodology, evaluate the representativeness of the linked sample, test a method for adjusting for biases that arise from non-representative linkages, and describe the size, diversity, and socioeconomic characteristics of the linked sample. We demonstrate that large sample sizes of linked data will likely permit us to compare several national origin groups across multiple generations.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Changing Opportunity: Sociological Mechanisms Underlying Growing Class Gaps and Shrinking Race Gaps in Economic Mobility
July 2024
Working Paper Number:
CES-24-38
We show that intergenerational mobility changed rapidly by race and class in recent decades and use these trends to study the causal mechanisms underlying changes in economic mobility. For white children in the U.S. born between 1978 and 1992, earnings increased for children from high-income families but decreased for children from low-income families, increasing earnings gaps by parental income ('class') by 30%. Earnings increased for Black children at all parental income levels, reducing white- Black earnings gaps for children from low-income families by 30%. Class gaps grew and race gaps shrank similarly for non-monetary outcomes such as educational attainment, standardized test scores, and mortality rates. Using a quasi-experimental design, we show that the divergent trends in economic mobility were caused by differential changes in childhood environments, as proxied by parental employment rates, within local communities defined by race, class, and childhood county. Outcomes improve across birth cohorts for children who grow up in communities with increasing parental employment rates, with larger effects for children who move to such communities at younger ages. Children's outcomes are most strongly related to the parental employment rates of peers they are more likely to interact with, such as those in their own birth cohort, suggesting that the relationship between children's outcomes and parental employment rates is mediated by social interaction. Our findings imply that community-level changes in one generation can propagate to the next generation and thereby generate rapid changes in economic mobility.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Shift or replenishment? Reassessing the prospect of stable Spanish bilingualism across contexts of ethnic change
June 2023
Working Paper Number:
CES-23-28
Much of the existing literature on Latinos' use of Spanish claims that a general pattern of intergenerational decline in the use of Spanish will produce an overall shift away from Spanish use in the U.S. (Rumbaut, Massey, and Bean 2006; Veltman 1983b, 1990). In contrast, recent works emphasize the importance of the social and linguistic context in reinforcing the use of Spanish as well as (pan)ethnic identities among U.S.-born Latinos (Linton 2004; Linton and Jim'nez 2009; Stevens 1992). This literature suggests conditions under which Spanish-English bilingualism might become stable at the level of metropolitan areas; however, such conditions depend on how immigration shapes the context of language use for native-born Latinos. Given the declining levels of immigration from Latin America, will bilingualism subside in the U.S., or have certain communities created conditions in which bilingualism can be stable? Using geocoded data from restricted access versions of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and the American Community Survey (ACS), we model the probability of Spanish-English bilingualism among second- and third-generation Latinos using multilevel models with contextual measures of immigration and language use at both the neighborhood and metropolitan levels. We find evidence that U.S.-born Latinos are heavily influenced by the prevalence of Spanish use among U.S. born Latinos at both the metropolitan and neighborhood levels. Further, the proportion of foreign-born Latinos has little effect on the native born, after controlling for Spanish use among U.S,-born Latinos. These results are a first step in understanding the link between ethnic or panethnic contexts and language practices, and also in producing a better characterization of stable bilingualism that can be tested quantitatively.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Geographic Immobility in the United States: Assessing the Prevalence and Characteristics of Those Who Never Migrate Across State Lines Using Linked Federal Tax Microdata
March 2025
Working Paper Number:
CES-25-19
This paper explores the prevalence and characteristics of those who never migrate at the state scale in the U.S. Studying people who never migrate requires regular and frequent observation of their residential location for a lifetime, or at least for many years. A novel U.S. population-sized longitudinal dataset that links individual level Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Social Security Administration (SSA) administrative records supplies this information annually, along with information on income and socio-demographic characteristics. We use these administrative microdata to follow a cohort aged between 15 and 50 in 2001 from 2001 to 2016, differentiating those who lived in the same state every year during this period (i.e., never made an interstate move) from those who lived in more than one state (i.e., made at least one interstate move). We find those who never made an interstate move comprised 75 percent of the total population of this age cohort. This percentage varies by year of age but never falls below 62 percent even for those who were teenagers or young adults in 2001. There are also variations in these percentages by sex, race, nativity, and income, with the latter having the largest effects. We also find substantial variation in these percentages across states. Our findings suggest a need for more research on geographically immobile populations in U.S.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
The Case of the Missing Ethnicity: Indians without Tribes in the 21st Century
June 2011
Working Paper Number:
CES-11-17
Among American Indians and Alaska Natives, most aspects of ethnicity are tightly associated with the person's tribal origins. Language, history, foods, land, and traditions differ among the hundreds of tribes indigenous to the United States. Why did almost one million of them fail to respond to the tribal affiliation part of the Census 2000 race question? We investigate four hypotheses about why one-third of multiracial American Indians and one-sixth of single-race American Indians did not report a tribe: (1) survey item non-response which undermines all fillin- the-blank questions, (2) a non-salient tribal identity, (3) a genealogy-based affiliation, and (4) mestizo identity which does not require a tribe. We use multivariate logistic regression models and high-density restricted-use Census 2000 data. We find support for the first two hypotheses and note that the predictors and results differ substantially for single race versus multiple race American Indians.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Examining Racial Identity Responses Among People with Middle Eastern and North African Ancestry in the American Community Survey
March 2024
Working Paper Number:
CES-24-14
People with Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) backgrounds living in the United States are defined and classified as White by current Federal standards for race and ethnicity, yet many MENA people do not identify as White in surveys, such as those conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. Instead, they often select 'Some Other Race', if it is provided, and write in MENA responses such as Arab, Iranian, or Middle Eastern. In processing survey data for public release, the Census Bureau classifies these responses as White in accordance with Federal guidance set by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. Research that uses these edited public data relies on limited information on MENA people's racial identification. To address this limitation, we obtained unedited race responses in the nationally representative American Community Survey from 2005-2019 to better understand how people of MENA ancestry report their race. We also use these data to compare the demographic, cultural, socioeconomic, and contextual characteristics of MENA individuals who identify as White versus those who do not identify as White. We find that one in four MENA people do not select White alone as their racial identity, despite official guidance that defines 'White' as people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. A variety of individual and contextual factors are associated with this choice, and some of these factors operate differently for U.S.-born and foreign-born MENA people living in the United States.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
The Relationship of Personal and Neighborhood Characteristics to Immigrant Fertility
August 2002
Working Paper Number:
CES-02-20
We find that fertility varies by immigrant generation, with significant declines between the first and subsequent generations for groups with large immigrant population. However, we find that personal characteristics--such as educational attainment, marital status, and income levels--are much more important than immigrant generation in understanding fertility outcomes. In fact, generations are not independently important once these personal characteristics are controlled for. We maintain that declining fertility levels among the descendants of Mexican and Central American immigrants are primarily the result of higher educational attainment levels, lower rates of marriage, and lower poverty. For example, a four-year increase in educational attainment decreases children ever born (CEB) by half a child. We conclude that immigrant generation serves as a proxy for changes in other personal characteristics that decrease fertility. Neighborhood characteristics have some bearing on fertility, but the correlations are relatively weak. Among Mexican and Central American immigrants and their descendants, the most consistent predictor of children ever born (CEB) at the neighborhood level is the percentage of Hispanic adults. However, no neighborhood characteristics bear any statistical relationship to current fertility, the measure that emphasizes recent births. This pattern of evidence suggests that the observed relationships between neighborhood characteristics and fertility are based on selection into the neighborhood rather than on neighborhood influences as such.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Factors that Influence Change in Hispanic Identification: Evidence from Linked Decennial Census and American Community Survey Data
October 2018
Working Paper Number:
CES-18-45
This study explores patterns of ethnic boundary crossing as evidenced by changes in Hispanic origin responses across decennial census and survey data. We identify socioeconomic, cultural, and demographic factors associated with Hispanic response change. In addition, we assess whether changes in the Hispanic origin question between the 2000 and 2010 censuses influenced changes in Hispanic reporting. We use a unique large dataset that links a person's unedited responses to the Hispanic origin question across Census 2000, the 2010 Census and the 2006-2010 American Community Survey five-year file. We find that most of the individuals in the sample identified consistently as Hispanic regardless of changes in the wording of the Hispanic origin question. Individuals who changed in or out of a Hispanic identification, as well as those who consistently identified as non-Hispanic (of Hispanic ancestry), differed in socioeconomic and cultural characteristics from individuals who consistently reported as Hispanic. The likelihood of changing their Hispanic origin response is higher among U.S.-born individuals, those reporting mixed Hispanic and non-Hispanic ancestries, those who speak only English at home, and those who live in tracts that are predominantly non-Hispanic. Racial identification and detailed Hispanic background also influence changes in Hispanic origin responses. Finally, changes in mode and relationship to the reference person in the household are associated with changes in Hispanic origin responses, suggesting that data collection elements also can influence Hispanic origin response change.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Intergenerational Transmission of Race: Permeable Boundaries between 1970 and 2010
September 2012
Working Paper Number:
CES-12-24
We study the social construction of race boundaries by investigating patterns in the race, ancestry, and Mexican origin responses provided for children of 14 types of interracial marriages using dense restricted-use data from 1970 to 2010. Our broader purpose is to expose social processes that convert a newborn child of mixed heritage into an adult person of a particular race. We include a more diverse set of families, a longer time span, and more accurate estimates than prior research. These expansions bear fruit.Taking ancestry responses into account and studying the longer-term patterns reveals that mixed-heritage responses have been common since 1980. Expanding the types of mixed heritage and including double-minorities shows that there is substantial variation in response patterns across the 14 groups.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States: An Intergenerational Perspective
September 2018
Working Paper Number:
CES-18-40R
We study the sources of racial and ethnic disparities in income using de-identified longitudinal data covering nearly the entire U.S. population from 1989-2015. We document three sets of results. First, the intergenerational persistence of disparities varies substantially across racial groups. For example, Hispanic Americans are moving up significantly in the income distribution across generations because they have relatively high rates of intergenerational income mobility. In contrast, black Americans have substantially lower rates of upward mobility and higher rates of downward mobility than whites, leading to large income disparities that persist across generations. Conditional on parent income, the black-white income gap is driven entirely by large differences in wages and employment rates between black and white men; there are no such differences between black and white women. Second, differences in family characteristics such as parental marital status, education, and wealth explain very little of the black-white income gap conditional on parent income. Differences in ability also do not explain the patterns of intergenerational mobility we document. Third, the black-white gap persists even among boys who grow up in the same neighborhood. Controlling for parental income, black boys have lower incomes in adulthood than white boys in 99% of Census tracts. Both black and white boys have better outcomes in low-poverty areas, but black-white gaps are larger on average for boys who grow up in such neighborhoods. The few areas in which black-white gaps are relatively small tend to be low-poverty neighborhoods with low levels of racial bias among whites and high rates of father presence among blacks. Black males who move to such neighborhoods earlier in childhood earn more and are less likely to be incarcerated. However, fewer than 5% of black children grow up in such environments. These findings suggest that reducing the black-white income gap will require efforts whose impacts cross neighborhood and class lines and increase upward mobility specifically for black men.
View Full
Paper PDF