Someone to Talk To: Immigrant-native Differences in Emotional Support for Children

• In Event: 2384 - Section on International Migration Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 10. Gender and the Household

Abstract

Although the emotional well-being of children is highly consequential for a range of outcomes, scant attention has been paid to the emotional sustenance of children in immigrant families. In particular, it is unclear who provides emotional support to children in immigrant households and if this provision differs from their counterparts with native-born parentage. This study uses data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 to examine immigrant-native differences in the provision of emotional support to children. I find that, compared to Whites with native-born parentage, Asian and Latino children of immigrants are less likely to receive emotional support from parents and more likely to receive it from adults other than parents and from siblings. Siblings at home and adults at school are important sources of emotional support for children of immigrants. Low socioeconomic status and lack of English language proficiency are obstacles that not only prevent parents from providing emotional support to children, but also partly explain why adults other than parents and siblings take on the responsibility of providing emotional support to children of immigrants. I suggest that providing emotional support to siblings is part of an enlarged role that children of immigrants take on in their households subsequent to migration. In addition, I suggest that racialization processes in the United States, including racialized encoding of achievement, partly explains immigrant-native differences in the provision of emotional support to children.

Author

• Yader R. Lanuza, University of Miami