Assimilation and Household Instability among Children in Immigrant Families

• In Event: 3251 - Section on International Migration Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 10. Migrant Youth

Abstract

Household instability is significantly related to children’s outcomes, and a critical mechanism of intergenerational transmission of inequality. Hence, understanding how the process of migration affects children’s exposure to household instability can shed light into the particularities of their experience and how these early life processes can potentially influence their life trajectories. Using the 2004 and 2008 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation we estimate rates of household instability for children in immigrant families by origin and duration of parents in the United-States. In addition, we test the factors that can contribute to high levels of household instability among children in immigrant families. Our findings show that changes in household composition decrease as parent’s live longer in the United States, potentially indicating a successful assimilation with less reliance on social connections and growing familiarity with labor and housing markets. Children in immigrant Hispanic families experience more instability than their Asian peers. While Hispanic families’ reliance on social network often leads to residence in shared unstable households, a factor compound by the circular nature of certain groups labor migration, Asian immigrants are more selected in terms of education and occupation, relying less on connections to find employment or housing.

Authors

• Maria Carolina Mota Pereira Aragao, University of Texas at Austin

• Inbar Weiss, University of Texas at Austin