Impacts of Family Disruption and Caregiver Documentation Status on Migrant Youth Behavior

• In Event: Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Topic - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Abstract

Migration to the U.S. represents a natural paradigm in which to study experiences of family separation and attachment disruption. As articulated by Berger et al. (under review), when “parents make the difficult choice to migrate to the US, they often make the simultaneous, and equally difficult choice to leave one or more children behind in the care of others (Gindling & Poggio, 2012).” As such, parental migration yields separation from a primary caregiver in nearly three quarters of cases (Berger Cardoso, 2018). Though adolescents may subsequently migrate to the U.S. and be reunified with a parent, the reunification may be tentative and, even if the reunification is stable, the separation is associated with significant mental health symptoms for years thereafter (Suarez-Orozco, Bang, & Kim, 2011).
With an increase in the number of families migrating to the U.S. and family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years, the aim of this study was to examine whether emotional and behavioral symptoms differed based on immigrant youths’ caregiving arrangements post-migration in order to better understand how the caregiving context might represent risk or resilience for emotional-behavioral issues. N = 111 Hispanic, immigrant high school students and N = 64 caregivers participated in this study. Based on youth report, 47.7% lived with their mother, father, or both; 24.3% with another relative, 2.7% with a non-relative, and 25.2% reported no caregiver. Overall rate of youth emotional and behavioral symptoms was slightly raised with a marginally significant effect indicating better outcomes for respondents cared for by their parents or another relative compared with those cared for by non-relatives or no caregiver. Notably, 2.7% of caregivers reported they were U.S. citizens, compared with 95.3% who indicated they were not. Caregiver documentation status was significantly related to caregiver-reported conduct problems (p = .001) and caregiver-reported total symptoms (p = .038) with medium to large effect sizes. Caregivers without legal documentation status reported youth with higher conduct problems, lower prosocial behavior, and higher overall symptoms.
Findings provide novel insight into the types and prevalence of caregiver arrangements migrant youth experience in the U.S. and add to the understanding that migration to the U.S. poses unique risk for behavioral and emotional problems; especially, in the context of family disruption. Results also indicate caregiver documentation status may play a significant role in the development of migrant youth conduct behavior. These findings suggest further research is needed regarding potential impacts of caregiver documentation status as this may act as a risk factor for youth behavior.

Authors

• Jesse H Walker, University of Houston
  Presenting Author

• Amanda Venta, University of Houston
  Non-Presenting Author