The children of migrants and their transition to adulthood

Demographers for long have observed sex selection among people who migrate. For example, in the case of Mexico, while men have for long dominated the flows of immigrants entering the United States, this trend is shifting somewhat. Less attention, however, has been focused on the sex selectivity of children. In particular, it is not known whether children born in Mexico and living in the United States are more likely to be boys or girls. This paper examines the sex selectivity of foreign-born Mexican-origin children living in the United States across five periods (1980, 1990, 2000, 2005-2007, and 2008-2010). The results of this analysis suggest that there is a greater than expected number of boys among foreign-born Mexican-origin children living in the United States.

Using high-quality administrative register data from Norway (N=1,021,491) and Sweden (N=1,923,870), we study the marriage behavior of all migrant- and non-migrant-background individuals born between 1972 and 1989, who were either born in Norway or Sweden or who immigrated prior to age 18 (generation 1.5). The timing of first marriage, relative to patterns of assortative mating, may be informative as to the socio-cultural distance between majority and migrant-background subpopulations. We analyze the differential hazards of marrying an individual of majority- or migrant-background within a competing risk framework. We further differentiate individuals by migrant generation, number of foreign-born parents, and (parental) region of origin. We demonstrate how the individual characteristics of migrant-background individuals (i.e., second generation status and having one majority parent) and the characteristics of one’s partnership (i.e., exogamy) are associated with marital timing patterns that are more similar to the majority populations in both Norway and Sweden. Results provide deeper insight into the family dynamics of migrants and their descendants.

This paper analyzes how the interaction of an event-transition as international migration interferes in the process of transition to adulthood. Addresses the relationship between events-stages of life-migration and mediation exercised by the context in decision making and in the course of the action. The goal is to contribute to the understanding of the complexity of the itineraries that currently carry into adulthood, a process that is mediated by other events.
Migration is seen as a process that involves different times, where the life course (LC) of people, among other factors, involved in modeling each. Like any event, has a differential impact on individuals depending on the stage of the life course in which it occurs. The succession of previous events determines the international migration, while that the timing when it occurs, affects the structuring of the subsequent LC.
I analyze recent Argentine emigrants in two contexts of reception: Mexico City and Madrid. I compare 2 groups: those who migrated at an early stage of life (they did not begin the transition to adulthood before departure) and who began the process in advance before migrating, located in a middle stage of life. I study the way in which the situation of each stage promotes migration and after their occurrence, how to reconfigure the subsequent LC.

This paper examines the educational selectivity of immigrants in France – i.e. how their level of education contrasts with that of non-migrants in their country of birth – and the influence of this selectivity on the educational attainment of their children. I use the Barro-Lee dataset (2010), which compiles information on educational attainment by year, gender, and age group in 146 countries from 1950 to 2010. I combine this data with responses from INED’s Trajectoires et Origines survey (2009) to construct a measure of “relative educational attainment,” i.e an immigrant’s position in the distribution of educational attainment among the population of the same age and gender in their country of birth at the time when they emigrated. After showing that the direction and extent of immigrants’ educational selectivity differ by country of origin and period, I demonstrate and interpret the positive net effect of immigrants’ “relative education” on their children’s educational attainment, over and above family socioeconomic status in France. Finally, I put forward an interpretation of the mechanisms that could account for the influence of immigrants’ relative education on their children’s educational attainment.

This article examines the identity formation of the Haitians in a middle class black neighborhood in New York. Segmented assimilation theory predicts that the Haitian second generation will integrate into the black American underclass or maintain strong ethnic group identities. The black middle class, however, is an unexplored pathway of cultural assimilation for black immigrants in general and Haitians in particular. This paper uses the literature on the racial and class experiences of the black American middle class as a departure point for understanding the boundary work of middle class Haitian youth. Based on qualitative interviews with 43 participants, we uncover the mechanisms of identity formation for this invisible population. Racial, ethnic and class boundaries compel them Haitian youth to create strategies of either empowerment or distancing in order to negotiate between their middle class status and ethnoracial exclusion. Haitian middle class youth performed different identities in their racially-segregated neighborhood, ethnically-homogenous religious setting and mixed-race schools. This study’s findings contributes to our theoretical understanding of the identity work of middle class immigrants.

This research investigates the school-to-work transition of North African immigrants’ descendants in France by focusing on the intersection of race and gender inequalities. For some decades, the descendants of immigrants have been reaching the age of leaving school and entering the labor market. More recently, descendants of non-European immigrants are reaching this crucial step of the transition to adulthood. There is a growing concern regarding their school-to-work transition as they face racial discrimination. We question the “double discrimination” hypothesis which states that second generation women should be the most disadvantaged as they potentially face both racial and gender discrimination. In this light, we analyze the labor market entry of young adults who finished their schooling in 2004 and were followed over five years in the Génération 2004 longitudinal survey. Results show that while descendants of European immigrants do not face racial inequality, those having North African parents are disadvantaged. Regarding women, they do experience gender based disadvantages but the combination of race and gender does not systematically lead them to the most unfavorable labor market outcomes. Therefore, results do not point to a systematic addition of race and gender based disadvantages.

The goal of this presentation is to analyze the situation of children left behind "children live with one of his parents, while the other parent lives abroad". Our paper will be structured around two broad themes. The first concerns the link between migrants and their families remaining in their country of origin. The second theme focuses on the education attendance of the children left behind. We will try to examine the effects of mother’s or father’s migration on school attendance of their children.
Our methodology based on comparative analyses between male and female and between children of migrants and those of non-migrants. We developed descriptive and comparative analyses, between women and men and between countries. We conducted also multivariate analyses based on logic regression to measure the probability to leave the school. We use individual data from census 2004 and from MIREM survey conducted in 2006 by Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies.

Western European cities have experienced increasing cultural diversity due to families of immigrant origins. Individuals’ language patterns have been the centre of much debate, for social integration concerns or on the importance of language diversity within official monolingual contexts. Focusing on descendants of Turkish immigrants in six cities (Paris and Strasbourg in France, Berlin and Frankfurt in Germany, Amsterdam and Rotterdam in the Netherlands), we explore parents’ language transmission during childhood and self-perceived proficiency in early adulthood, the latter used as an indicator of linguistic self-esteem within a sociological perspective (Bourdieu, 1991; Fishman 1991; Brizic, 2006; Norton, 2006). Approaching language outcomes as a consequence of collective processes, we aim to understand the extent to which linguistic self-esteem in each of the three countries is influenced by various factors. We investigate the role of parental linguistic capital and country of residence in shaping language patterns across Turkish descendants aged between 18 to 35, born in the country and with one or two parents born in Turkey. We used data from the Integration of the European Second Generation (TIES) survey, launched in 2003 to study descendants of immigrants in eight Western European countries.

This paper explains the differences existing among the children of immigrant and native-born families in their adjusted educational expectations (expectations controlling for prior performance) in Spain, an under-represented case in the international literature. We use individual-level predictors to account for the gap between these two groups and explore the explanatory potential of broader contextual factors, namely the school and classes within schools. We use the best empirical tools available for the study of contextual effects in the formation of educational expectations: (a) the recently available survey 2011-Chances, a large-scale dataset of children before the end of compulsory schooling in Madrid; and (b) the 2010 Secondary Schooling National Evaluation Survey, for the first time exploited along this line of research. Most of the unconditional disadvantage experienced by immigrants in Spain is accounted for by individual-level variables. Once the family background and the basic socio-demographic characteristics are considered, the migrant background appears to have a positive effect on expectations, confirming the what has recently been seen in other European countries. Surprisingly, schools appear to be relevant in unconditional models, but the conditional impact of school effects is at best modest.

The aim of this paper is to describe the attitudes toward fertility of immigrants’ children living in Italy and to measure the influence of individual and community determinants on their fertility preferences (FP). Data come from ITAGEN2, a quantitative survey performed in the s.y. 2005/06 targeted on Middle Schools (aged 11-14), statistically representative of 48 Italian provinces (above 103) for schools with >10% of foreign pupils (Centre-North) and >3% (South). About 20 thousand self-filled questionnaires have been collected (10,000 foreigners and 10,000 Italians). More than 200 schools are involved. The main results are the followings. Immigrants’ children want less children than Italians’ children (the opposite result comparing to similar survey in the Netherlands and Canada). The assimilation process works also for FP, as the FP of 2° generation are very similar to the FP of native Italians. Apart from the age of immigration, FP are influenced by the following individual characteristics: gender (– females), working status of the mother (– working mother), number of siblings (+), orientation toward career (–), knowledge of Italian language (+), ethnic tradition (+). At a community level, FP are influenced mainly by the realized fertility in school-friend’s family than the desired fertility in the country of origin.