Immigrant Generation, Friendship Network, and Delinquency

• In Event: The Intersection of Immigrant Status and Criminal Offending

Abstract

A growing body of literature continues to demonstrate that friends mediate the connection between immigrant generations and delinquency. Beyond the recognition that earlier-generation immigrant youth tend to experience less exposure to delinquent friends, researchers have done little to examine the role of friendship networks in understanding the varying involvement of different generational groups in delinquency. Using data from the first two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we explore how the features of friend network contribute to the differential rate of delinquency among groups across immigrant generations. Our findings indicate significant differences in the structure and behavioral pattern of friendship network across immigrant generations. Furthermore, incorporating these characteristics of friendship network into analytical models accounts for a lower level of involvement in delinquency among first-generation immigrant youth. Our results point to the need to differentiate dimensions of friendship to better capture one's estimation of friends' effect on immigrant assimilation.

Authors

• Xiaojin Chen, Tulane University

• Xin Jiang, Slippery Rock University