SignificanceWhile successful integration of immigrants and refugees is a goal for many host countries, scholarly assessment of progress toward that goal is hampered by the lack of an accepted measure of integration success. This study proposes a pragmatic, survey-based measure that identifies six dimensions of integration and then, through four surveys, examines the construct validity of the composite measure. The measure has the potential to advance scientific progress in the study of immigrant integration.
The United States is embroiled in a debate about whether to protect or deport its estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants, but the fact that these immigrants are also parents to more than 4 million U.S.-born children is often overlooked. We provide causal evidence of the impact of parents’ unauthorized immigration status on the health of their U.S. citizen children. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program granted temporary protection from deportation to more than 780,000 unauthorized immigrants. We used Medicaid claims data from Oregon and exploited the quasi-random assignment of DACA eligibility among mothers with birthdates close to the DACA age qualification cutoff. Mothers’ DACA eligibility significantly decreased adjustment and anxiety disorder diagnoses among their children. Parents’ unauthorized status is thus a substantial barrier to normal child development and perpetuates health inequalities through the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage.
This article reports the results of an experiment comparing branch, grid, and single-item question formats in an internet survey with a nationally representative probability sample. We compare the three formats in terms of administration time, item nonresponse, survey breakoff rates, response distribution, and criterion validity. On average, the grid format obtained the fastest answers, the single-item format was intermediate, and the branch format took the longest. Item nonresponse rates were lowest for the single-item format, intermediate for the grid, and highest for branching, but these results were not statistically significant when modeling the full experimental design. Survey breakoff rates among the formats are not statistically distinguishable. Criterion validity was weakest in the branching format, and there was no significant difference between the grid and single-item formats. This evidence indicates that the branching format is not well suited to internet data collection and that both single-item and short, well-constructed grids are better question formats.
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