Time and Generation: Parents’ Integration and Children’s School Performance in Sweden, 1989–2011

Abstract

A central element of assimilation theory is that increasing time and number of previous immigrant generations in a host country leaves immigrants and their children more integrated and capable of navigating the host society. However, the underperformance of some immigrant groups in Sweden calls into question this relationship. Additionally, many studies regard intermarriage as an outcome of immigrant integration and rarely investigate whether integration continues after intermarriage. Using population level data from the Swedish interdisciplinary panel on 22 cohorts of ninth-grade students born between 1973 and 1995, we examine the effect of parents’ time in Sweden on their children’s grade point average using family fixed effects. Additionally, we investigate whether this relationship differs between “2.0” and “2.5” generation children. We find, generally, that parents’ time in Sweden increases their children’s educational performance, though some variation by parents’ region of origin exists. This supports the idea that integration experiences in immigrant families can be transmitted across generations. Further, this generally holds for both the 2.0 and 2.5 generation children. This relationship among the 2.5 generation is notable as previous studies using a family-based approach looking at the intergenerational transmission of integration have largely focused on the children of two foreign-born parents.

Parents’ Willingness to Pay for Bilingualism: Evidence from Spain

“…Parents might therefore choose Basque as a language of instruction in order for their children to become bilingual individuals, with all the advantages this entails. This result would also align with previous evidence for immigrant parents making this choice (Levels & Dronkers, 2008;Rangvid, 2010;Smith et al, 2019). 1 In the metropolitan area of Santander, such an issue is not as salient because there is only one official language.…”

What divides the first and second generations? Family time of arrival and educational outcomes for immigrant youth

“…The effect is practically small, about half a percentage point increase in the likelihood that a youth speaks English very well per year of parents' prebirth experience. These results stand in contrast to the small set of published papers examining the effect of parents' years since migration on children's outcomes- Nielsen and Rangvid (2012) and Smith et al (2016), Smith et al (2019) find a positive impact of parents' years since migration on achievement. Consistent with prior work, I show that some outcomes that measure English knowledge are decreasing in age at arrival; this pattern is present for attainment outcomes in the Census/ACS as well.…”

“…This article contributes to an emerging literature that examines the importance of parents' host country experience for child outcomes. The discrepancy between my results and prior work in this area may be due to the different contexts since Nielsen and Rangvid (2012) and Smith et al (2016), Smith et al (2019), use Scandinavian data. Thus, there is value in replication across different locations and time periods.…”

“…Age at migration measures host country experience more finely but only applies to first‐generation immigrants. A handful of recent papers have used parents' years since migration to differentiate second‐generation immigrants whose parents have different amounts of host country experience (Nielsen & Rangvid, 2012; Smith et al, 2016; Smith et al, 2019).…”

Challenging the ‘Swedish’ and ‘Immigrant’ Dichotomy: How do Multiracial and Multi-ethnic Swedes Identify Themselves?

“…As a result, in the public imaginary and daily conversation, the word 'Swedish' connotates whiteness and functions as a white racial category while 'immigrant background' connotes nonwhiteness and becomes a category in which all non-white Swedes are lumped together. Research indicates that persons of mixed origin may experience different kinds of discrimination and disadvantages in Sweden (Behtoui 2006;Kalmijn 2015;Smith et al 2019), and mixed Swedes need to manoeuvre the white racial norm (Adeniji 2014;Arbouz 2017;Hübinette and Arbouz 2019). Moreover, the terms and awareness equivalent to 'multiracial', 'multiethnic', and 'mixed' do not exist in the Swedish society and the Swedish language, which may limit their possibilities to identify themselves and contest the existing binary (Arbouz 2012).…”