A young age at arrival is believed to be an important predictor of adult immigrant achievement, but there is no consensus on what age(s) at arrival is pivotal/crucial/critical. The 2000 census reports exact years of arrival and age providing us the opportunity to test different formulations for age-atarrival effects for several different socioeconomic outcomes. We focus on the experiences of Mexican immigrants to the U.S. in this study.Our results indicate that the effect of early arrival is much greater for English proficiency than other outcomes and bears significantly on most, not all, attainments. There is little evidence at any age of a sharp discontinuity demarcating a 1.5 generation from older immigrants and, in fact, a series of classifications or a continuous measurement of age at arrival may be preferred in some cases. Guidelines are offered for the most appropriate formulation of age at arrival under different contexts.Age at arrival has been recognized as an important factor determining the outcomes of immigrant adaptation, in addition to generation and duration of U.S. residence; it identifies the stage of the life cycle at which an immigrant is beginning life in a new country (Piore, 1979). The age or stage at arrival can effectively determine the extent of acculturation, language acquisition, and schooling, so much so that Rumbaut (1991) was compelled to dub immigrants who arrived as young children the "1.5 generation." Their experiences and outcomes differ so dramatically from adult immigrants that "first generation" is not an entirely appropriate label for them.Many immigration researchers have adopted a simple dichotomous definition of the 1.5 generation as immigrants who arrived prior to the age of twelve.
Twentieth-century American men and women were often unable to live up to or down to their own fertility ideals. In a national random sample of 11,126 ever-married men and women over the age of 44, “discrepant fertility”—the difference between ideal fertility and completed fertility—was common. This article seeks to identify the causes of such discrepancies, and findings suggest that the most important exogenous factor is “birth cohort.” Those born prior to or after the Great Depression were prone to exhibit negative discrepant fertility, having had fewer children than they thought ideal, while those born during the Depression—the parents of the baby boom—were characterized by significant positive discrepant fertility, having had more children than they thought ideal. It is argued that these cohort effects are closely related to social and economic conditions that prevailed as twentieth-century Americans came of age and assessed their professional and familial prospects.
The fact that the United States is more racially and ethnically diverse now than in the past has led scholars to dismiss dichotomous-black/white-conceptions of race as antiquated. However, some others have noted the emergence of a black/non-black divide that is manifest in patterns of residential segregation and intermarriage. This study attempts to determine whether such a dichotomous conception is sufficient to capture the effects of race and ethnicity on unemployment patterns among entry-level workers in the United States. Findings suggest that more than 80% of the effects of race and ethnicity on unemployment can be captured simply by knowing who is black and who is not. The most elaborate conception tested here acknowledges 20 different racial and ethnic groups; it adds significantly but not commensurately to the explanatory power of the models. Despite the increasingly diverse racial and ethnic composition of entry-level labor markets in the United States, it is black exclusion that seems to drive the effects of race and ethnicity on unemployment.
The first substantial waves of voluntary migration from Africa arrived in the United States in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The largest number of them hailed from Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and South Africa. Highly select in their educational aspirations and achievements, many of them settled and started families. By 2010, their U.S.-born children had begun to reach adulthood, offering us a first look at intergenerational mobility among voluntary migrants from Africa. The racial diversity in this group of immigrants allows us to gauge the impact of racial stratification on immigrant adaptation. 1990 U.S. census and 2008–2012 American Community Survey data are used to uncover patterns of affluence and poverty among young Egyptian, Ethiopian, Nigerian, and South African immigrants in 1990 and U.S.-born men and women of those ancestries in 2008–2012. White and Black cohorts of U.S. birth and stock serve as additional referents. I find that women of the African second generation have advanced faster than their male counterparts and that racial group membership is at least predictive of financial well-being as specific national origins, with Black Africans, and Ethiopians in particular, showing pronounced disadvantages compared with White Africans in both the immigrant and second generations.
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