Foreign-born Parents Research Articles

Children in Immigrant Families in Switzerland: Family and Socioeconomic Environment

Switzerland is from the end of World War II an immigration country. After three decades of labour migration, in the early 1980s, family reunification progressively became the most important reason for immigration. At the time of the 2000 Census, there were 1.5 million documented foreigners living in Switzerland. This represented 20% of the resident population, one of the highest proportions of foreigners in any country in Europe. Approximately 39% of children in Switzerland were members of families of foreign origin with at least one foreign-born parent. This paper statistically describes the living conditions and socioeconomic environment of those children, by computing indicators according to the origin. It shows the huge diversity of situations regarding the socioeconomic position of parents and the social background. In particular, children from Western Europe and the United States live in highly skilled families whereas children from Portugal and the Balkans live in families with a very low level of qualification. Such results justify the formulation of integration and school policies that take into account the characteristics of each migration flow.

Moving Beyond Ethnicity: The Socio-Economic Status and Living Conditions of Immigrant Children in the UK

This paper examines the situation of children in immigrant families living in the UK through an analysis of 2001 census data according to the country of birth of children and their parents. The foreign-born population in the United Kingdom reached 4.9 million in 2001, representing 8.3 per cent of the total population. Around 2.1 million children (16.3 per cent of all children in the UK) were living in immigrant families. A fifth of these children were born outside the UK with the remainder being born in the UK with at least one foreign-born parent. More than 40 per cent were in families from Asia, around 20 per cent from Africa and around 20 per cent from countries in Europe. Pakistan, India, the Republic of Ireland, Germany and Bangladesh were the main countries of origin. Although there is significant variation in the socio-economic status and living conditions of immigrant families from different regions and countries of origin, it is clear that immigrant children are faring less well overall than their native-born counterparts. Levels of employment are higher among the parents of native-born children despite the fact that parents in immigrant families generally exhibit higher educational attainment levels. Immigrant children are more likely to be living in overcrowded housing that is not owned. The analysis presented in this paper suggests that an ethnicity-focused approach alone is inadequate for addressing the present and future needs of immigrants and their children or in understanding the dynamics of immigrant inclusion and exclusion.

Reduction in hepatitis B virus seroprevalence among U.S.-born children of foreign-born Asian parents—Benefit of universal infant hepatitis B vaccination

We demonstrate that after implementation of recommendations for universal infant hepatitis B vaccination, HBV infection prevalence among children of foreign-born Asian parents in Georgia declined dramatically; horizontal transmission of infection within households has occurred infrequently; and the vast majority of infants and children have received the recommended hepatitis B vaccinations. These results provide evidence of the success of the hepatitis B infant vaccination program and highlight its potential impact on reducing chronic HBV infection morbidity and mortality among U.S. populations at high risk.

At the Intersection of Transnationalism, Latina/o Immigrants, and Education

At the Intersection of Transnationalism, Latina/o Immigrants, and Education Patricia Sánchez and Margarita Machado-Casas Except for Mexico, “there are now more Latino-origin people in the U.S. than there are people in Spain, Argentina, Colombia, or any other Spanish-speaking country…[In fact, our nation is experiencing] the greatest demographic transformation in the last 100 years of its history” (Mandel, 2004, citing Professor Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco). As former schoolteachers of immigrant children in Texas and California, we have witnessed this demographic transformation firsthand in schools where our students' backgrounds and communities included both first- and second-generation Latinas/os.1 Today as educational researchers and professors who prepare teacher candidates, we are even more intrigued by the social, cultural, political, economic, and educational issues related to this population shift. Our intrigue stems from the unique opportunities that these waves of Latina/o newcomers bring to our society as well as from our concerns that many in the field of teaching do not quite understand nor appreciate the complexity of Latina/o immigration. For these reasons, we assembled a collection of studies that address the ongoing transformation of our country's landscape—one that includes immigrant transnationalism “as a long-term process which may be viewed, from an analytical perspective, as a trajectory, or rather as a multiplicity of potential trajectories” (Grillo, 2007, p. 199). Latina/o immigration in the U.S. has both a long history and a variety of social actors from different regions of Latin America, revealing many contours of transnationalism—including transnational projects with lengthy trajectories and others with new and recent intensity. These characteristics are evident in several of the investigations in this special issue. But before we present readers with the specific details of each of the research studies on transnational Latina/o immigrants—seven in total—with a special commentary piece by a leading figure in Latina/o education (Sofía Villenas), we wish to provide demographic [End Page 3] information on the U.S. Latina/o community, followed by a discussion on transnationalism as an important lens with which to “see” immigrant students in general. We then offer a description of the work that has been published by scholars focusing on transnational Latina/o families, complemented by demographic information on Latina/o students and a brief treatise on why more research should combine Latina/o students, transnationalism, and education. It is precisely this last analytic category—education—that has been sorely understudied in work dealing with transnational Latina/o children and youth. We hope the current special issue, “At the Intersection of Transnationalism, Latina/o Immigrants, and Education”—graciously supported by the High School Journal—begins to fill part of that void in educational scholarship. Both academic and practitioner communities will greatly benefit from this dialogue and line of research. Statistics on U.S. Latinas/os According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2007), Latinas/os in this country comprise 15 percent2 of the estimated total U.S. population of 302 million, making Latinas/os the largest minority group in our country. In addition, it is also the fastest-growing: More strikingly, Hispanics account for half of the total population growth in the U.S. over the last five years [2000–2005]. The impact of Latino population growth is further magnified by the fact that the white and black populations have grown by only 2% and 7% respectively since 2000 (Hakimzadeh, 2006). Within the U.S. Latina/o population itself, 40 percent are foreign-born (Hakimzadeh, 2006). And during 2000 to 2005, native-born Latinas/ os accounted for 62% of the total change in the Latina/o population, while foreign-born Latinas/os represented the remaining 38% (Hakimzadeh, 2006). The same 2005 data “confirms that Latino population growth has been driven primarily by increases in the second generation” (Hakimzadeh, 2006). This indicates that U.S. Latinas/os are highly immigrant if we include in this definition those Latinas/os with at least one foreign-born parent; the surge in births of the second generation is highly relevant to the issue of transnationalism and education, as we will see further below. Of the 50 U.S...

Parental Engagement and Contact in the Academic Lives of College Students

Information on the various forms of parental involvement in higher education is lacking. This paper investigates parental engagement in college students’ academic lives, the mode and frequency of student-parent communications, and how all of this varies across different student populations (by race/ethnicity, social class, parental immigrant status, gender, and year in school). Drawing from the 2006 University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey (UCUES), results revealed parental contact and engagement in college students’ academics to be greatest among women, freshmen, and wealthy/upper middle-class students. Comparisons by race, ethnicity, and parental immigration status revealed above-average levels of parental contact among Mexican American, Latino/Other Spanish, Japanese/Japanese American, American Indian/Alaska Native students, and students of foreign-born parents, but below-average ratings of parental engagement in these same students’ academic lives.

School-Age Children in Immigrant Families: Challenges and Opportunities for America's Schools

Background/Context By the year 2030, when the baby boom generation born between 1946 and 1964 will be in the retirement ages, 72% of the elderly will be non-Hispanic Whites, compared with 56% for working-age adults, and 50% for children. As the predominantly White baby boomers reach retirement, they will increasingly depend for economic support on the productive activities and civic participation of working-age adults who are members of racial and ethnic minorities and, in many cases, children of immigrants. To prepare these young people for lives as productive workers and engaged citizens, we need to pay more attention to creating conditions that will foster their educational success. The profound shift taking place in the composition of the school-age population has implications for schools. Purpose/Objective/Research Questions/Focus of Study This article presents a demographic overview of school-age children in immigrant families and compares them with their peers in native-born families. After tracing the shift in the national origins of children of immigrants that has taken place over the past century, we consider the new challenges and opportunities presented to the education system by the socioeconomic, cultural, and religious diversity of this new and growing population of students and by their presence in a growing number of suburban and rural, as well as urban, communities. Population/Participants/Subjects This research uses data from Census 2000 to study children in immigrant families who have at least one foreign-born parent compared with children in native-born families who were born in the United States to U.S.-born parents. Research Design This research is a secondary analysis of data from Census 2000. Conclusions/Recommendations Immigration is transforming the demography of America. In less than three decades, a majority of children are likely to belong to race-ethnic minorities who are Hispanic, Black, Asian, or another non-White race, mainly because of immigration and births to immigrants and their descendants. The educational success achieved by immigrant groups, and their subsequent economic productivity, is important not only to the groups themselves but also to the broad American population because these groups will compose an increasingly important segment of the U.S. labor force during the next few decades; this labor force will be supporting the predominantly White baby boom generation throughout their retirement years. As we increasingly become a nation of minorities, with no single race-ethnic group in the majority, the educational success of all children, especially the rapidly growing population of children in immigrant families, merits increasing attention from teachers, school administrators, and public officials.

The Unknown Immigration: Incentives and Family Composition in Inter-Country Adoptions to the United States

Children adopted from abroad are an immigrant group about which little is known. According to the U.S. Census more than one and a half million children living in the U.S. are adopted, with fifteen percent of them born abroad. In fact more than twenty thousand adopted orphans from abroad enter the country each year. The families who adopt these orphans are mostly white, wealthy, and well educated (Kossoudji, 2008). What are the characteristics of children who are adopted from abroad and what incentives drive families to adopt them? In this paper we use the 2000 census to illuminate the landscape of international adoption. We address three issues: 1) How do the demographic characteristics of the children adopted from abroad change as other countries open and shut the door to inter-country adoptions, changing the supply of available children? 2) U.S. born parents and foreign-born parents may have different incentives to adopt. How are these incentives reflected in the characteristics of the children they adopt? 3) What explains differences in the estimates of foreign-born adopted children in the Census and the number of visas granted by the State Department?

Cross-Nativity Marriages and Human Capital Levels of Children

A common perception about immigrant assimilation is that association with natives necessarily speeds the process by which immigrants become indistinguishable from natives. Using 2000 Census data, this paper casts doubt on this presumption by examining the effect of an immigrant's marriage to a native, a measure of social integration, on dropout rates of children from these marriages. Although second-generation immigrants with one native parent generally have lower dropout rates than those with two foreign-born parents, the relationship reverses when steps are taken to control for observable and unobservable background characteristics. That is, immigrants that marry natives have children that are more likely to dropout of high school than immigrants that marry other immigrants. Moreover, gender differences in the effect of marriage to a native disappear in specifications which control for the endogeneity of the marriage decision.

State-level health care access and use among children in US immigrant families.

We examined the association between children's state of residence and their access to health care among specific types of immigrant families: foreign-born children, US-born children with 1 foreign-born parent, US-born children with both foreign-born parents, and nonimmigrant families. We analyzed data from 12 400 children from the 2003 National Survey of Children's Health in the 6 states with the highest proportion of immigrants (California, Florida, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and Texas). Multivariable analyses indicated that among foreign-born children, those living in California, Illinois, and Texas were more likely to lack access to health care compared with those living in New York. Among foreign-born children with 1 or 2 US-born parents, Texas children were most likely to lack health insurance. Within nonimmigrant families, children from California, Florida, and Texas had significantly more access and use problems. Our findings document differential health care access and use among states for specific immigrant family types.

Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use in Children with Type 1 Diabetes: A Pilot Survey of Parents

The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence and characteristics of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use among children with diabetes. Anonymous surveys were completed by guardians of children with diabetes attending an urban diabetes clinic over three months. The survey included demographics, parent and child CAM use (excluding vitamins), and perceived opinions of health providers about CAM use. The representativeness of the surveyed sample was evaluated and analyses examined associations with child CAM use. Children in the analysis (N = 86, 33% response rate) were similar to the potential population for age, gender, insurance type, and age at diabetes diagnosis. Children analyzed were mean 10.9 years of age (SD 3.9), 56% male, 71% Caucasian, 83% privately insured, and 90% spoke English at home. Parents were 22% foreign born and 45% college graduates; 19% of children and 45% of parents had tried CAM. There were 30 CAM use occurrences among 16 children; 60% were CAM activities (ie, faith healing, chiropractic treatments, relaxation techniques) and 40% were CAM supplements (ie, herbs, nutritional supplements, herbal teas). Child CAM use was more common if a parent had used CAM (33% vs 6%; P = .002) and among children with foreign-born parents (37% vs 13%; P = .04). CAM was used to decrease diabetes complications and improve overall health. Parents were comfortable discussing CAM with the diabetes team and their child's primary care provider. Children with diabetes were using CAM as an adjunctive therapy for diabetes. The diabetes healthcare team needs an increased awareness about CAM.

Children of Immigrants May Face Stresses, Challenges That Affect Mental Health

WASHINGTON, DC—In addition to facing the usual developmental tasks of acquiring a sense of self and becoming independent, children of immigrants to the United States also must cope with the challenges of being a member of an ethnic or racial minority and with a host of other stresses, according to speakers at a symposium on immigrant children’s mental health at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) here in May. Given the difficulties that immigrant families often face, it is perhaps not surprising that some of these children have a heightened risk for depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and other mental health problems. In 2006, nearly 38 million US residents—about 13% of the total population—were foreign born. According to the US Census Bureau, about 12 million persons younger than 18 years had foreign-born parents, and more than half of these children were born in this country. Since the passage in 1965 of Congressional legislation aiding family reunification, the number of children of immigrants in the United States has more than tripled.

High Levels of Physical Inactivity and Sedentary Behaviors Among US Immigrant Children and Adolescents

To examine the prevalence and correlates of physical inactivity and sedentary behavior among immigrant and US-born children. Cross-sectional analysis using data from the 2003 National Survey of Children's Health, a telephone survey conducted between January 29, 2003, and July 1, 2004. United States. Multivariate logistic and least squares regression models were used to analyze immigrant differentials among 68 288 children aged 6 through 17 years. Main Exposure Ethnic-immigrant status. Prevalence and odds of regular physical activity, inactivity, television watching, and lack of sports participation. Physical inactivity and sedentary behaviors varied widely among children in various ethnic-immigrant groups. For example, 22.5% of immigrant Hispanic children were physically inactive compared with 9.5% of US-born white children with US-born parents. Approximately 67% of immigrant Hispanic children did not participate in sports compared with 30.2% of native Asian children. Overall, immigrant children were significantly more likely to be physically inactive and less likely to participate in sports than native children; they were, however, less likely to watch television 3 or more hours per day than native children, although the nativity gap narrowed with increasing acculturation levels. Compared with native white children, the adjusted odds of physical inactivity and lack of sports participation were both 2 times higher for immigrant Hispanic children with foreign-born parents, and the odds of television watching were 1.5 and 2.3 times higher for native Hispanic and black children, respectively. Immigrant children in each ethnic minority group generally had higher physical inactivity and lower sports participation levels than native children. To reduce disparities, health education programs need to promote physical activity among children in immigrant families.

Practical Patriotism: Camp Fire Girls, Girl Scouts, and Americanization

Drawing primarily on discourses and events from the period surrounding World War I, this essay examines the methods deployed by Camp Fire Girls and Girls Scouts to recruit the daughters of immigrants and, upon joining, acculturate these new members to the American way of life. The argument begins by analyzing those discourses describing the so-called “new immigrant” from southern and eastern Europe as a threat to national unity. Turning to the ways in which the new immigrant problem was gendered through the rhetorical construction of a “girl problem,” this author argues that the advocates describing the girl problem leveraged the presumed cultural rift between foreign-born parents and their new-world children in order to induce the daughters of the foreign-born to perform as American. The essay closely analyzes the discourses of two groups committed to the project of Americanizing the daughters of immigrants: the Camp Fire Girls and Girl Scouts. The article contends that these groups, the two most popular of the period, Americanized the daughter of the foreign-born by using recruitment tactics that invited her to dissociate from an old-world ethnicity, deploying legendary heroines re-figuring the girl's American belonging, and engineering patriotic regimens habituating her to American customs. Ultimately, this essay demonstrates how these groups rhetorically refigured the cultural and social belonging of their members in order to assuage public concerns about national unity.

Socioeconomic Risk Factors for Bacterial Gastrointestinal Infections

Bacterial gastrointestinal infections cause considerable morbidity in industrialized countries, but little is known about socioeconomic factors affecting the risk of infection. By linkage among 3 national registers, we followed the entire population of Denmark (5.3 million people) from 1993 to 2004 for the occurrence of laboratory-confirmed bacterial gastrointestinal infections. Using Poisson regression analyses, incidence rate ratios (IRRs) were estimated for the major groups of bacteria in different socioeconomic strata, focusing on income group, level of education, marital status, number of children in the household, and country of birth. Associations with socioeconomic variables varied by type of bacterium. High-income groups had increased risks of infection with Campylobacter, Shigella, and Salmonella Enteritidis, and education was positively associated with increased risk of infection with Campylobacter and Shigella. Married persons were generally at higher risk than single persons, but adults with children had lower risks compared with adults without children. Foreign-born persons generally had lower risks, whereas Danish-born persons with foreign-born parents were at reduced risk of infection with the pork-associated bacterium Yersinia (IRR = 0.33; 95% confidence interval 0.25-0.42), but increased risk with Shigella (5.7; 4.8-6.1), Salmonella, and Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli. The findings suggest that risk of infection is not primarily associated with poverty, but rather with increasing socioeconomic status. Risk of infection also varies with cultural background. Observed differences may be explained by differences in diet and travel activity, although they may also in part reflect differential probabilities of diagnostic reporting.

Health Inequalities among Latinos: What Do We Know and What Can We Do?

WHAT DO WE KNOW? Numbering over 40 million, Latinos constitute 12.5 percent of the U.S. population, and that number is projected to grow to 103 million, with Latinos representing 24 percent of the population by 2050 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2003). Contrary to the public perception that Latinos are culture, the demographic profile is diverse. Comprising a youthful age structure, one-third of Latinos are younger than 18 years of age, and the median age of Latinos in the United States is 27 years, which is considerably lower than 40, the median age for white people (Pew Hispanic Center, 2006). Latinos have multiple origins (63.9 percent are Mexican, 9.1 percent are Puerto Rican, 3.5 percent are Cuban, 10.2 percent are Central American, 5.4 percent are South American, and 8.1 percent are other). Languages spoken among Latinos vary; 80 percent of those younger than 18 years of age reported that they speak English very well, whereas 53 percent of those older than 18 claimed a similar level of English fluency. Among the immigrant population older than 18, nearly three out of four said they speak English less than very well (Pew Hispanic Center, 2006). The geographic location of Latinos is varied, with some residing in traditional urban hubs (that is, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and Chicago) and with others residing in new growth communities. From 2000 to 2005, the percentage change of the Latino population more than doubled in states like North Dakota (62.1 percent),Arkansas (58.6 percent), South Carolina (51.4 percent), and Tennessee (51.3 percent) (Pew Hispanic Center, 2007). In addition, their family compositions include a rich generational mix of foreign-born and U.S.-born members. For example, three in 10 Latinos are native-born children of foreign-born parents (Pew Hispanic Center, 2006). From 2000 to 2020, the second generation will contribute to 47 percent of the growth of the Latino population, whereas the first generation will contribute only 28 percent (Suro & Passel, 2003). Planning for the future requires measuring these demographic trends against what is happening within the current U.S. health care context. The increasing federal and state budget deficits, the rising number of uninsured people, and the escalating health care costs present new challenges for policymakers and health practitioners. Consumer needs for health services such as preventive and specialty care, prescription drugs, technological innovations in treatment, and end-of-life care are far exceeding our nation's system capacity to provide affordable, quality, and accessible coverage to a diverse citizenry. Furthermore, a historical pattern of existing health-related inequalities among racial and ethnic minorities and the lack of political will to address them accelerate this health crisis. Given the growth of a heterogeneous Latino population and the emerging challenges facing the nation, what should policymakers, health care providers, and social workers consider in planning for the future? On the one hand, we should be cautiously optimistic because research has demonstrated that Latinos have favorable health outcomes despite having low levels of education, income, and health insurance coverage (Escarce, Morales, & Rumbaut, 2006; Franzini, Kibble, & Keddie, 2001; Vega & Amaro, 1994; Wei, et al., 1996). This apparent health advantage seems to be particularly evident among immigrants compared with their U.S.-born counterparts with regard to infant mortality, low-birthweight, and all-cause mortality (Acevedo-Garcia, Soobader, & Berkman, 2005; Frisbie & Song, 2003; Hummer, Rogers, Amir, Forbes, & Frisbie, 2000; Singh & Siahpush, 2001). On the other hand, research on the positive health profile of Latinos suggests a pattern of worsening health outcomes for Latino immigrants with longer durations of stay in the United States and for later generations (Cacari Stone, Acevedo-Garcia, & Viruell-Fuentes, 2007). …

How Did SCHIP Affect the Insurance Coverage of Immigrant Children?

Abstract The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) significantly expanded public insurance eligibility and coverage for children in ``working poor" families. Despite this success, it is estimated that over 6 million children who are eligible for public insurance remain uninsured. An important first step for designing strategies to increase enrollment of eligible but uninsured children is to determine how the take-up of public coverage varies within the population. Because of their low rates of insurance coverage and unique enrollment barriers, children of immigrants are an especially important group to consider. We compare the effect of SCHIP eligibility on the insurance coverage of children of foreign-born and native-born parents. In contrast to research on the earlier Medicaid expansions, we find similar take-up rates for the two groups. This suggests that state outreach strategies were not only effective at increasing take-up overall, but were successful in reducing disparities in access to coverage.

Early reading achievement of children in immigrant families: Is there an immigrant paradox?

This article examines whether longitudinal reading trajectories vary by the generational status of immigrant children as they begin formal schooling through the 3rd grade. The results of the hierarchical linear model indicated that 1st and 2nd generation children (i.e., those born in a foreign country and those born in the United States to foreign-born parents, respectively) had higher achievement scores at the spring of kindergarten than did 3rd generation children. Yet, controlling for race/ethnicity and maternal education fully reduced the 1st generation advantage. In addition, 1st generation children grew in reading achievement at a faster rate than did 3rd generation children. Controlling for a host of proximal and distal factors that included demographic, race/ethnic, family, and school characteristics somewhat reduced the association between generational status and rate of growth. First and 2nd generation children continued to increase their reading scores at a faster rate than did 3rd generation children. It is likely that additional factors not measured in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Kindergarten cohort, such as selection, cultural, or motivational factors, would be useful in further explaining the immigrant advantage.

Parental Nativity Affects Children’s Health and Access to Care

To examine the effect of parental nativity on child health and access to health care. The 2002 National Survey of America's Families. Among US children, 14% have foreign-born parents; 5% have one foreign- and one native-born parent ("mixed-nativity"). In multivariate logistic regression analyses, children with foreign-born parents were less likely than children with US-born parents to be perceived in "very good" or "excellent health" [OR = 0.68; 95% CI (0.56-0.82)] and to have a usual health care site [OR = 0.52 (0.38-0.69)]; having mixed-nativity parents is associated with better perceived child health. These effects persisted for minority, but not white, children. Regardless of race and ethnicity, non-citizen children have worse access to care. Efforts to improve children of immigrants' health and access to care should focus on families in which both parents are immigrants, particularly those who are ethnic or racial minorities. Efforts to increase use of health services should focus on non-citizen children.

Parental Nativity is an Important Factor Associated with Where Children Usually Go for Health Care

Few studies of children's access to care account for the independent effects of parental immigration characteristics. To address this gap in knowledge, we examine the association between parental nativity and where children usually obtain health care. The 2002 National Survey of America's Families (N = 34,332). Fourteen percent of the sampled children had only foreign-born parents. Most of the sampled children used physician's offices or HMOs (69%) and clinics or other hospital outpatient settings (24%) as usual sites for health care; few used hospital emergency departments or other care providers (1.4%). After adjusting for confounders, using multinomial logistic regression, both citizen [OR = 1.92 (1.44-2.56)] and non-citizen [OR = 5.21 (3.33-8.15)] children with foreign-born parents were more likely to lack a usual site for health care, compared to children with at least one US-born parent-regardless of the mother's citizenship and duration of stay in the US. After accounting for parental nativity, lack of citizenship and shorter durations of US stay among mothers were associated with children's greater use of public clinics or other hospital outpatient settings, rather than physician's offices or HMOs. The effect of parental nativity persisted for minority, but not white, children; however, non-citizen children lacked a usual site for health care regardless of their race and ethnicity. The immigration characteristics of parents are important to disparities in where children usually go for health care. These results suggest that increasing the "biomedical acculturation" of immigrant mothers may improve access to care for their children.

The Problem of Second-generation Decline: Perspectives on Integration in Canada

Recent studies in North America have produced mixed results on the socioeconomic success of second-generation immigrants. This study contributes to this debate by analysing the data of the 1999 Equality, Security, and Community Survey. The analysis reveals that children of immigrant parents are not performing as well as most theories of linear assimilation suggest. Their performance varies depending on whether one or both parents are foreign-born. Specifically, there is a marked similarity between the outcomes of native-born children and second-generation children with only one immigrant parent, and between immigrant children and those of the second generation with two foreign-born parents.