A Burden of Support? Household Structure and Economic Resources Among Mexican Immigrant Families

Abstract

The children of Mexican immigrants face formidable barriers to achieving socioeconomic mobility due to their parents' precarious economic position and high rates of unauthorized status. In the short term, Mexican immigrants often coreside in extended household living arrangements with extended kin and unrelated friends and associates to shelter themselves from economic deprivation and insecurity of unauthorized status. Using individual-level Census data, the present study examines how family economic resources relate to household living arrangements. The results are consistent with various theories of immigrant household formation, especially those that explain household structure in terms of economic need and processes of immigration. Families residing in extended arrangements are unique, however, in terms of how often they include a householder and how much they contribute to total household resources, indicators that families may hold more supportive roles within extended households. The implications of the findings for the well-being of immigration children are discussed.

Demographic Analysis of Latin American Immigrants in Spain

“…It has been reported that migrants of diverse origin are more likely to share households. On a similar note earlier studies have found that living arrangements of migrants differ compared to non-migrants in which the economy of scale has been suggested as one of the explanatory factors (Glick and Van Hook 2002;Goldscheider and Goldscheider 1989;Leach 2014). Changing economic conditions with more job insecurity and higher unemployment was, in line with this, shown to result in remaining in the parental home longer (Gauthier 2007).…”

Extended Families: Support, Socialization, and Stress

“…While most financial behavior research focuses on individuals, there has been some attention to financial socialization across generations (Chiteji & Stafford, 1999;Hellstrom et al, 2013;Keister, 2003;Leach, 2012;Li, 2009;Yorgason et al, 2011). There is a lack of information about how extended family members influence our financial decisions.…”

“…Shared households are another form of resource pooling that includes multifamily households, as well as adult children and members who are not relatives or romantic partners (Mykyta & Macartney, ). Some households may include fictive kin (e.g., godfather/godmother) and nonkin (e.g., roommates) (Leach, ; Robles, ). In 2011, 22 million households were shared, and 41.2 million adults were sharing a household with adults who were not their spouse or romantic partner (Mykyta & Macartney, ).…”

“…Social interaction within family networks plays a bigger role where people are raised to trust their close family networks yet not to trust people outside the family networks (Fukuyama, ). Racial and ethnic minorities and immigrants value the social interaction with trusted social networks, and first‐generation immigrant families are more likely to rely on these extended kin networks for information and guidance (Leach, ). While it is clear that extended family affects individuals’ financial decisions, little is known about the dynamics of extended family relationships (prominence and character of extended families, quality of interactions, frequency of contacts, proximity) in association with financial decision making beyond intergenerational financial transfer.…”

“…Mexican families who have recently immigrated to the United States have a higher reliance on extended family members as a source of social and economic support (Leach, ). Some argue that family integration among Latinos is affected by economic needs and available resources more than cultural disposition to form these networks (Leach, ; Sarkisian, Gerena, & Gerstel, ). However, others suggest that cultural diversity and cultural capital do affect financial decision making of immigrants (Robles, ; Sawady & Tescher, ).…”