The Second Generation and Context of Socialization - Health Over The Life Course

• In Event: International Migration Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 16. Immigration and health / health care

Abstract

This section of my proposed dissertation research focuses on the physical and mental health of the second generation (US-born children of immigrants) over the life course. Utilizing the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and 1997 surveys, I will conduct age-period-cohort analyses on a second generation sample to compare health over the life course based on variations in the contextual and structural constraints encountered over various stages of the life course. I propose a new theoretical approach, The Context of Socialization, which shifts the framing of social structure and context away from those experienced by the first generation during their integration process. Instead, I focus on how context, social structure, and institutions shape the acculturation process that the second generation undergoes throughout their lives. I argue that the contextual and structural variation affecting disparities among the second generation can be broken down into five key domains: the labor markets, the coethnic community, government policies (immigration enforcement policies, educational policies, and public welfare policies), crime and criminalization, and native's attitudes towards immigrants and their children. Building off Segmented Assimilation Theory, Neo-Assimilation Theory, and the Context of Reception Framework, I will highlight the importance of contextual variability beyond dichotomized operationalizations of traditional and new destinations, divert away from comparisons of the second generation across different ethnic groups to center contextual factors’ influence on within-ethnic group health disparities, and introduce understudied temporal comparisons of multiple cohorts of the second generation across different age groups and periods. I will accomplish these goals by analyzing the mental health outcomes (CES-D and General Anxiety Disorder scores) and physical health outcomes (a summary scale from 0 to 5 measuring chronic conditions over the life course) of the second generation across my various contextual and temporal variables.

Author

• Matthew Tarizzo, Vanderbilt University