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ERIC EJ883078: Immigration and Adult Transitions PDF

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Immigration and Adult Transitions Immigration and Adult Transitions Rubén G. Rumbaut and Golnaz Komaie Summary Almost 30 percent of the more than 68 million young adults aged eighteen to thirty-four in the United States today are either foreign born or of foreign parentage. As these newcomers make their transitions to adulthood, say Rubén Rumbaut and Golnaz Komaie, they differ significantly not only from one another but also from their native-parentage counterparts, including blacks and whites. The authors document the demographic changes in the United States over the past forty years and describe the ways in which generation and national origin shape the experiences of these newcomers as they become adults. Rumbaut and Komaie point out that immigrant groups experience gaps in social, economic, and legal status that are even greater than the gaps between native whites and blacks. By far the most-educated (Indians) and the least-educated (Mexicans) groups in the United States today are first-generation immigrants, as are the groups with the lowest poverty rate (Filipinos) and the highest poverty rate (Dominicans). These social and economic divides reflect three very different ways immigrants enter the country: through regular immigration channels, without legal authorization, or as state-sponsored refugees. For many ethnic groups, significant progress takes place from the first to the second generation. But, say the authors, for millions of young immigrants, a lack of legal permanent residency status blocks their prospects for social mobil- ity. Having an undocumented status has become all the more consequential with the failure of Congress to pass comprehensive federal immigration reforms. In the coming two decades, as the U.S. native-parentage labor force continues to shrink, immi- grants and their children are expected to account for most of the growth of the nation’s labor force, with the fastest-growing occupations requiring college degrees. Rumbaut and Komaie stress that one key to the nation’s future will be how it incorporates young adults of immigrant origin in its economy, polity, and society, especially how it enables these young adults to have access to, and to attain, postsecondary education and its manifold payoffs. www.futureofchildren.org Rubén G. Rumbaut is a professor of sociology at the University of California–Irvine. Golnaz Komaie received her Ph.D. from the University of California–Irvine in 2009. VOL. 20 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2010 43 Rubén G. Rumbaut and Golnaz Komaie Immigration, a transformative force, whites. We consider structural barriers faced has produced striking demographic by sizable segments of immigrant youth, changes in the American population especially the undocumented and the less- over the past few decades, especially educated poor, in their transitions to adult- among its young adults. As recently hood and discuss possible policy options. as 1970, only 4 percent of the approximately 48 million young adults (aged eighteen to Young Adults in an thirty-four) in the United States were foreign Age of Migration born. That proportion was the lowest since No assessment of adult transitions in the the U.S. Census Bureau began keeping United States can fail to pay heed to the ways records on nativity in 1850. But by 2008, in which contemporary young adulthood has when the number of young adults had grown been increasingly shaped by international to more than 68 million, almost 30 percent of migration. After four decades of accelerating them were either foreign born or of foreign migration flows, by 2008 about 41 million for- parentage. These new first and second eign-born men and women were living in the generations of immigrant origin are steadily United States, most of them having arrived growing and changing the ethnic composition after 1990, primarily from Latin America and and stratification of the nation’s young adult Asia. That population has been growing by population. What is more, their transitions to about 1 million annually, in both legal and adult roles—leaving the parental home, unauthorized statuses. These immigrant flows finishing school, entering into full-time work, consist primarily of young adults and their getting married, having children—not only children. Of the 41 million foreign born, 44 differ significantly by generation and ethnic- percent arrived in the United States as young ity, but often stand in marked contrast to adults between the ages of eighteen and patterns observed among their native coun- thirty-four, and another 40 percent arrived terparts who are conventionally assumed to as children under the age of eighteen, in due set societal standards. course to “come of age” and make their own transitions to adulthood in their adoptive In this article we sketch a comparative society.1 portrait of young adults in the United States in the first years of the twenty-first century, Moreover, given the youthful age structure focusing on new patterns of ethnic diversi- and higher fertility rates of the immigrant fication and of widening socioeconomic and population, a new second generation—the legal inequalities in early adulthood. We ana- U.S.-born children of the immigrants—has lyze data from the latest Current Population been growing rapidly. By 2008, the U.S.-born Survey and review recent research on young second generation (with one or two foreign- adults of immigrant origin. We focus particu- born parents) totaled more than 32 million; larly on generational differences between the 20 percent of them were young adults aged foreign-born first and “one and a half” gen- eighteen to thirty-four, and nearly half (46 erations and the U.S.-born second generation percent) were under eighteen—that is, they (of foreign parentage), who are mainly of were still mainly children and teenagers. As Latin American and Asian origins, compared this new second generation reaches adult- with native-parentage young adults, who are hood in large numbers within the next overwhelmingly non-Hispanic blacks and decade or two, its impact will be increasingly 44 THE FUTURE OF CHILDREN Immigration and Adult Transitions and widely felt throughout the society—in non-Hispanic blacks and whites are over- higher education, the labor market, sports whelmingly native-stock populations, while and popular culture, criminal justice and Hispanics and Asians are overwhelmingly religious institutions, the mall, and the ballot foreign-stock groups: about 90 percent of box—all the more so in the urban centers whites and blacks are native-born of native- where they are concentrated.2 born parents (third or higher generations), but about 80 percent of Hispanics and 94 percent of Asian ethnics are either foreign born or of foreign parentage (first or second As this new second generation generation). This sharp divide reflects the reaches adulthood in large recency of the migration of the latter groups, and underscores the central importance of numbers within the next nativity and generation in the experience decade or two, its impact will of ethno-racial groups in contemporary America. The magnitude of the ethnic shift be increasingly and widely will become more pronounced as a result felt throughout the society. of continuing international migration (espe- cially from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia), the higher fertility of immigrant women in the United States, and the aging These new Americans are not a homoge- and lower fertility of the white native popula- neous population. They differ greatly in their tion. For instance, Hispanics, who according national origins and cultural backgrounds, in to the U.S. Census Bureau surpassed African their areas of geographic concentration, and Americans as the largest minority group in in their patterns of socioeconomic mobility the United States in 2003, now account for and legal status. Before turning to an exami- one of every five young adults nationally— nation of their transitions to adult roles, we and much larger proportions in states and consider briefly their ethnic diversity, ethnic counties of Hispanic concentration, including geography, and ethnic inequality. California, Texas, New York, and Florida.3 The Ethnic Diversity of Early Adulthood Lumping millions of newcomers into Contemporary immigration has led to the “Hispanic” and “Asian” pan-ethnic categories, formation of new U.S. ethnic groups. Their however, conceals fundamental differences extraordinary ethnic diversity is belied by between the scores of nationalities that are the fact that newcomers from more than 150 bound and glossed by those labels. Of the 19 countries with profoundly different cultures million first- and second-generation young and histories have been officially classified, adults between the ages of eighteen and through the use of one-size-fits-all pan-ethnic thirty-four, more than half come from the categories, as “Hispanics” and “Asians,” Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America, similar to the older broad racial classifications but fully 35 percent from a single country: of “blacks” and “whites.” Still, the advent of Mexico. Salvadorans and Guatemalans these newcomers is clearly reflected in the together add 5 percent more, Puerto Ricans 4 changing ethnic and generational makeup of percent, and Dominicans and Cubans 2 young adulthood. Among all young adults, percent each. Together, this handful of Latin VOL. 20 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2010 45 Rubén G. Rumbaut and Golnaz Komaie American groups makes up nearly 50 percent adults are first or second generation, and of all first- and second-generation young in a handful of metropolitan regions. For adults in the United States. Similarly, despite example, nearly three-fifths of all persons far greater diversity among a score of Asian- eighteen to thirty-four in Southern California origin groups, five of them make up another (59 percent), the San Francisco Bay Area (58 16 percent of first- and second-generation percent), and the New York metropolitan young adults: Filipinos, Chinese, and Indians area (56 percent) are of foreign birth or par- account for 4 percent each, and Vietnamese entage, as are fully two-thirds of the young and Koreans for 2 percent each. Those ten adults of greater Miami and of Texas cities ethnic groups thus constitute nearly two- along the Mexican border from El Paso to thirds of all eighteen- to thirty-four-year-olds Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville. By con- of foreign birth or parentage. trast, outside of that handful of regions, the proportion of young adults in the rest of the Their countries of origin are the largest United States who are of immigrant origin sources of immigration to the United States, is less than one-fifth. Thus, studies of young and they represent the principal types of adults in New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, migration flows (undocumented laborers, and Miami encounter very different popula- professionals, refugees). More than half of tions than are found in areas less touched by all Mexican, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan contemporary immigration.5 immigrants in the United States today are undocumented; those groups make up 70 Those areas of immigrant concentration, in percent of the estimated 11.6 million unau- turn, differ greatly by the ethnic composition thorized immigrants (Mexicans alone account of the young adults who settle there. Consider for three-fifths of the total).4 Indians, Chinese the top ten groups noted earlier. Of the 6.5 (including Taiwanese), Koreans, and Filipinos million first- and second-generation Mexican have predominated among the “brain drain” young adults in the United States, more than flows of professional immigrants. And Cubans a fourth are concentrated in Southern and Vietnamese are by far the two largest California alone (primarily along the corridor groups admitted as state-sponsored political from Los Angeles to San Diego)—as are more refugees. Accordingly, although they by no than a fourth of all Salvadorans and means exhaust the extraordinary diversity of Guatemalans between eighteen and thirty- contemporary immigration, those ten groups four and a fifth of all Filipinos, Vietnamese, (five “Hispanics,” five “Asians”) will be consid- and Koreans. More than two-thirds of all ered separately in the analyses that follow. Dominican young adults in the United States reside in metropolitan New York, as do nearly The Ethnic Geography of a third of Puerto Ricans and a fifth of the Early Adulthood Chinese. Greater Miami alone accounts for The nearly 30 percent of all young adults in well over half of all Cuban young adults. The the United States who come from immigrant Indians are more dispersed, but still 15 origins (whether first or second generations) percent are found in greater New York. are not distributed evenly across the coun- try; rather, they are highly concentrated in Ethnic Inequalities particular states and localities, especially in Until recently, social inequalities among California, where 55 percent of all its young Americans (and among young adults in 46 THE FUTURE OF CHILDREN Immigration and Adult Transitions particular) have been seen through a prism is significant. By 2008, more than a quarter of of black-white differences. Although major the foreign-born population—an estimated socioeconomic differences persist between 11.6 million people—were undocumented native whites and blacks, the social and immigrants, by far the largest number and economic divides between immigrant-origin share in U.S. history. Half (49 percent) of the groups, who are overwhelmingly Hispanics undocumented were young adults eighteen and Asians, are even larger. The ethnic to thirty-four, and another 13 percent were diversity of contemporary immigrants pales children under eighteen.7 We turn now to in comparison with the diversity of their examine generational and ethnic differences social class origins. By far the most-educated in the transition to adulthood and how adult (Indians) and the least-educated (Mexicans) transitions are affected by patterns of socio- groups in the United States today are first- economic and legal inequality among immi- generation immigrants, as are the groups grant-origin groups. with the lowest poverty rate (Filipinos) and the highest poverty rate (Dominicans)—a Generational Differences reflection of the fundamentally different in Adult Transitions ways they enter the country: through regular The exit from adolescence and entry into immigration channels, without legal autho- adult roles and responsibilities typically rization, or as state-sponsored refugees. And entails status transitions from school to work their differing legal status interacts with their and from one’s family of origin to the forma- human capital to shape distinct modes of tion of new intimate relationships, notably incorporation. via marriage and parenthood. Nationally, relative to patterns observed several decades “Brain drain” professionals mainly enter ago, normative timetables for accomplishing under the occupational preferences of U.S. such adult transitions have been prolonged.8 law, which favor the highly skilled and edu- Postsecondary schooling has lengthened for cated. Also found among the first waves of young people, and the exit from the parental refugee flows, these professionals are more household, the entry into full-time work, and likely to become naturalized citizens and, decisions about marriage and children have usually within the first generation, home- been delayed. For example, data from the owners in the suburbs. The undocumented National Longitudinal Study of Youth show consist disproportionately of manual laborers that, between 1985 and 2003, the proportion with less than a high school education, whose of young adults aged twenty to twenty-two legal vulnerability makes them economically still living with their parents increased from exploitable and likely to be concentrated in 45 percent to 57 percent.9 And census data central cities. Their children in turn tend to show that from 1950 to 2008 the median grow up in neighborhoods and attend schools age at first marriage rose from twenty-three where they are exposed disproportionately to to twenty-eight for men and from twenty to peer groups involved with youth gangs and twenty-six for women—the oldest on record intergroup violence. Indeed, an unauthorized for both. status can affect virtually every facet of an immigrant’s life—especially during the transi- Figure 1 graphs the percentage of young tion to adulthood.6 The size and concentra- adults in the United States who are not living tion of this vulnerable young adult population with their parents, are enrolled in school full VOL. 20 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2010 47 Rubén G. Rumbaut and Golnaz Komaie Figure 1. Transitions to Adulthood in the United States: Young Adults 18 to 34 100 Full-time school 90 Does not live with parents 80 Full-time work 70 Ever married 60 Has children ent 50 c er P 40 30 20 10 0 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Age Source: Current Population Survey, 2008 (Annual Social and Economic Supplement). time, are working full time, are married, and Do these patterns hold for both immigrants have children, for every year from age and natives, or do they differ by generation? eighteen to thirty-four. The data again come Figure 2 looks at each of these five measures from the 2008 Current Population Survey. for all young adults aged eighteen to thirty- Nationally, these data show that the most four, broken down by generational cohorts. rapid shifts in the school-to-work transition, Within the foreign-born first generation, there are significant differences between and in leaving the parental fold, occur immigrants who arrived in the United States between the ages of eighteen and twenty- as children and those who arrived as teens four; the major changes in marriage and or young adults.10 Thus, we distinguish the parenthood take place from age twenty-five “1.0” (those who immigrated at age thirteen to age thirty-four. For example, among all or older) and the “1.5” cohorts (those who eighteen-year-olds in the United States, 80 immigrated as children under thirteen) from percent were living with their parents, 75 the second generation (native born with one percent were attending school full time, and or both parents foreign born) and the third only 10 percent were working full time. By and later (“3+”) generations (native born with age twenty-four, those figures had reversed: native-born parents). only 25 percent were still living with their parents and only 15 percent were attending As figure 2 shows, the first generation clearly school full time, while 62 percent were stands out in their greater propensity to have working full time. But among all twenty-four- completed the five major transitions to adult- year-olds, less than a quarter had had chil- hood. Not surprisingly, the 1.0 generational dren (23 percent), and less than a third had cohort is the least likely to be living with their ever married (29 percent); by age thirty-four, parents (only 8 percent)—who are most often two-thirds had children and three-fourths left in the country of origin—and the least had married. likely to be attending school (22 percent), the 48 THE FUTURE OF CHILDREN Immigration and Adult Transitions Figure 2. Transitions to Adulthood by Generational Cohorts: Young Adults 18 to 34 65 Generations 60 1.0 50 1.5 2nd 40 3+ nt e erc 30 P 20 10 0 Lives with parents Full-time school Full-time work Ever married Has children Adult transitions by foreign-born and native-born generations Source: Current Population Survey, 2008 (Annual Social and Economic Supplement). most likely to be working full time (61 per- circumstance of being raised in immigrant cent), and by far the most likely to be married families while being educated and reach- (57 percent) and to have children (42 percent). ing adulthood in the United States). The native 3+ generations—who by definition In contrast, the U.S.-born second genera- set and reflect societal norms—in turn fall in tion is the least likely to have achieved those between the first and second generations in conventional markers of adult status—leaving these measures. home, finishing school, entering the work- force, getting married, and having children. As noted, second-generation young adults It is the second generation that stands out in are the least likely to have left the parental every instance, rather than the first (1.0 or home. This trend is most pronounced during 1.5) or the third and later (3+), that is, U.S.- the earliest years (eighteen to twenty-four) born children of U.S.-born parents. Indeed, of the transition: more than three out of five second-generation young adults are by far (61 percent) second-generation eighteen- the most likely to live with their (immigrant) to twenty-four-year-olds continue to live at parents (40 percent), as will be elaborated home with their immigrant parents. As we below; they are also the most likely to be will show, for young adults in immigrant fam- attending school (49 percent) and by far the ilies, staying at home helps to pool resources least likely to be married (32 percent) and to and minimize expenses, especially given have children (25 percent). the high cost of housing in major immigrant destinations like New York City, Miami, and The 1.5 generation, classic in-betweeners, Southern California.11 falls in between the 1.0 and the second generations in virtually every indicator, but Despite general observations often made to more closely resemble the latter (their U.S.- the contrary about immigrants, it is worth born counterparts, with whom they share the underscoring that the 1.0 generation of young VOL. 20 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2010 49 Rubén G. Rumbaut and Golnaz Komaie Table 1. Adult Transitions among Young Men and Women, by Ethnicity and Generation, by Percent Percent Men and women, 18–24 only Women only, 18–24 and 25–34 Living with Full-time Full-time Ethnicity Generation* parents school work Marriage Children 18–24 18–24 18–24 18–24 25–34 18–24 25–34 Native parentage Black 3+ 49.2 35.2 33.5 8.9 40.0 30.2 65.5 White 3+ 53.0 42.4 40.2 18.7 71.4 16.3 56.8 Foreign parentage Mexican 1.0 12.4 4.7 57.4 59.2 81.7 47.0 77.1 1.5 43.8 23.1 46.9 35.9 73.9 35.7 75.2 2nd 57.1 32.5 40.8 25.4 67.9 28.7 65.8 Salvadoran/ 1.0 9.6 5.5 59.6 44.4 72.5 34.7 67.5 Guatemalan 1.5 46.5 23.8 52.2 42.4 62.4 39.0 60.5 2nd 64.1 43.4 33.5 13.8 48.3 15.2 51.8 Puerto Rican** 1.0 24.2 22.9 39.9 38.3 69.6 43.1 68.9 1.5 45.6 29.2 42.6 20.3 49.1 29.7 68.0 2nd 59.9 30.5 35.8 13.8 53.7 30.4 70.7 Dominican 1.0 31.6 23.3 43.4 31.2 71.2 30.0 74.7 1.5 57.4 43.3 33.9 8.1 54.5 18.9 64.2 2nd 66.9 48.4 25.7 7.6 54.8 13.9 52.7 Cuban 1.0 40.7 12.9 52.3 33.2 72.1 20.3 58.2 1.5 56.1 32.1 44.9 23.8 75.6 20.2 64.7 2nd 59.7 46.7 39.1 10.0 70.2 11.1 57.6 Vietnamese 1.0 37.6 46.6 28.5 24.8 78.3 8.5 56.0 1.5 52.1 59.9 22.8 13.0 56.7 15.0 41.4 2nd 53.9 60.5 30.4 6.2 38.8 6.1 31.9 Filipino 1.0 47.5 28.1 37.0 31.9 76.1 22.9 53.4 1.5 55.5 55.7 36.6 8.9 56.6 9.9 45.6 2nd 65.6 55.0 29.5 9.6 55.7 15.3 44.8 Korean 1.0 33.5 60.9 15.2 14.3 75.5 <1% 47.0 1.5 58.9 57.9 29.1 6.7 56.6 4.4 36.5 2nd 58.0 61.4 21.0 10.2 39.3 4.3 26.0 Chinese 1.0 27.2 68.4 20.4 10.9 71.5 2.9 37.9 1.5 59.6 67.4 21.9 1.7 45.4 5.4 26.8 2nd 66.7 65.7 21.5 3.5 46.0 1.3 25.5 Indian 1.0 19.1 41.4 30.8 53.6 92.0 8.8 63.0 1.5 71.7 73.5 16.9 15.3 65.4 8.6 52.1 2nd 75.0 71.0 18.1 2.7 51.0 1.4 25.8 Source: Current Population Surveys, 2003–2008 (Annual Social and Economic Supplement). * The first generation (foreign-born) is divided into two cohorts: 1.0 (13 or older at arrival) and 1.5 (12 or younger at arrival); the second generation is U.S.-born with one or both parents foreign-born; the third or higher (3+) generations are U.S.-born of U.S.-born parents. ** For Puerto Ricans, 1.0 and 1.5 are born on the island; 2nd is born on the mainland of island-born parents. adults (but not the 1.5) is by far the least still reside in their countries of origin. For likely to reside with their parents; generally, those who were the protagonists of the the parents of most of those who immigrated decision to migrate—to leave home, radically as young adults (or even in their late teens) —immigration itself is a definitive adult 50 THE FUTURE OF CHILDREN Immigration and Adult Transitions transition. But for the children of immigrants relatively minor differences in the first three raised in American communities, for whom of these status transitions: whites were only the migration of their parents is an inherited slightly more likely than blacks to be living circumstance, the process of “coming of age” with their parents (53 to 49 percent), 7 points has different meanings and obligations and more likely to be attending school full time evolves in fundamentally different contexts. (42 to 35 percent), and 6 points more likely to be working full time (40 to 34 percent). With Ethnic Differences in respect to marriage and children, however, Adult Transitions differences are very sharp: between age Generational status, as determined by age eighteen and twenty-four, white women were at migration and by the nativity of self and two times more likely to have married (19 parents, clearly makes a major difference in to 9 percent), while black women were two the modes of adult transitions. What about times more likely to have had children (30 to ethnicity? In previous analyses of young 16 percent). By age twenty-five to thirty-four, adults in the United States we found that white women remained far more likely to Hispanics collectively (two-thirds of whom have ever married (71 to 40 percent), while are of Mexican origin) were the most likely to the childbearing gap had narrowed signifi- have moved out of the home of their parents, cantly (57 to 66 percent). to be married, have children, and be working full-time, while Asian-origin young adults as Intergroup and intergenerational differences a whole were the most likely to be attending in adult transitions among the ten foreign- school and least likely to have children.12 But parentage Hispanic and Asian ethnic groups as noted, such pan-ethnic categories often are much more pronounced. For example, conceal more than they reveal. among 1.0-generation immigrants eighteen to twenty-four years old, only 5 percent of Table 1 takes a closer look at ethnic differ- Mexicans, Guatemalans, and Salvadorans ences and provides data on adult transitions were attending school full time (while almost for the ten largest ethnic groups of foreign 60 percent were working full-time—char- parentage in the United States, broken down acteristic of low-wage labor migrants). By by generational status (1.0, 1.5, and second), comparison, for the same 1.0 cohort of eigh- compared with native-parentage white and teen to twenty-four-year-olds, full-time school black young adults. Because the greatest attendance ranged from less than 25 percent changes in the school-to-work transition and for Cubans, Dominicans, and Puerto Ricans, in the exit from the parental household occur to less than 50 percent for Filipinos, Indians, from age eighteen to twenty-four, the left and Vietnamese, to more than 60 percent for panel of table 1 focuses on that earlier phase Koreans and Chinese. for those transitions; then, with respect to the entry into marriage and parenthood, the right By the 1.5 and especially the second gen- panel of the table compares women only in eration, within the span of one generation, two age groups, eighteen to twenty-four and full-time school attendance increases tremen- twenty-five to thirty-four. dously for most of these groups, indicative of rapid educational mobility. Among eighteen- Between age eighteen and age twenty-four, to twenty-four-year-olds, for example, the native-parentage whites and blacks exhibit share of Mexicans going to school full time VOL. 20 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2010 51 Rubén G. Rumbaut and Golnaz Komaie increased to 23 percent in the 1.5 genera- women exhibit moderate and declining levels tion and 33 percent in the second genera- of childbearing from the first to the second tion; the respective rates for Salvadorans and generations, with the Cubans more likely to Guatemalans were 24 percent and 43 per- be married. cent; for Cubans, 32 percent and 47 percent; for Dominicans, 43 percent and 48 percent; The Vietnamese, Korean, Indian, and and for all of the Asian groups, well above 50 Chinese women, in turn, exhibit very low lev- percent in both the 1.5 and second genera- els of early childbearing (all in single digits), tions, including two-thirds of the Chinese and and very sharp declines from the first to the nearly three-fourths of the Indians. In turn, second generation in the proportion who get the proportion of these groups who lived with married. By ages twenty-five to thirty-four, their parents roughly corresponded to the only a fourth of second-generation Korean, proportions that attended school full time, Indian, and Chinese women and less than a and was inversely related to the proportion third of the Vietnamese have had children, that worked full time. compared with more than half of the Cubans, Dominicans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans, Pursuing higher education leads many and two-thirds of the Mexicans and Puerto young adults to postpone marriage and Ricans. These differences in adult transi- children. Thus, it is not surprising to see that tions, in turn, are rooted in and reflect wide the groups most likely still to be in school differences in socioeconomic inequality and full time (for example, second-generation mobility among these groups. We now turn Filipinos, Indians, Chinese, Koreans, and to those considerations. Vietnamese) are also the least likely to be married and to have children. But as was Socioeconomic Inequality and the case between native-parentage whites Mobility in Early Adulthood and blacks, the interethnic and intergenera- Table 2 examines key indicators of educa- tional group differences are striking in these tional and economic inequality. The data are respects. As table 1 shows, the Mexicans again presented for the ten largest ethnic and Puerto Ricans were by far the most groups of foreign parentage in the United likely to have had children in early adult- States, broken down by generational status hood (eighteen to twenty-four years old), (1.0, 1.5, and second), compared with native- but Mexican women were much more likely parentage white and black young adults. The to be married than the Puerto Ricans (for left panel of the table presents data on those whom the likelihood of nonmarital childbear- at the two poles of educational attainment— ing increases notably from the 1.0 to the 1.5 college graduates and high school dropouts— and second generations). The likelihood of and the ratio of the two. The right panel of both marriage and early parenthood among the table presents the percentage of young Mexican young women decreases notably adults who are low-wage laborers, below the from the 1.0 to the 1.5 and second genera- poverty line, and lacking private health insur- tions. Salvadoran and Guatemalan young ance (itself a reflection of job instability in women also exhibit high rates of marriage early adulthood).13 and early childbearing in the first generation, but sharp decreases in the second generation. As the data make clear, these diverse groups In contrast, Dominican, Cuban, and Filipino of newcomers, who account for a substantial 52 THE FUTURE OF CHILDREN

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