The Integration of Immigrants into American Society (2015) / Chapter Skim
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8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration
8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration
Pages 345-376
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From page 345... ...
We begin by examining recent patterns of immigrant marriage, including documenting the extent to which foreign-born populations marry natives of the same cultural or racial backgrounds. Next, we examine recent patterns and differentials in immigrant fertility, which are sometimes viewed as cultural expressions of 345
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INTERMARRIAGE AND IMMIGRANT INTEGRATION Intermarriage refers to marriages between partners from different ethnic or racial groups, socioeconomic backgrounds, religious affiliations, or national origins (Kalmijn, 1998; Schwartz, 2013)
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In this chapter, we discuss three types of intermarriage and their implications for immigrant integration: internativity, meaning marriage between a foreign-born person and a native-born person; ethnoracial, meaning marriage between two persons of two different ethnoracial backgrounds, one of whom may be foreign-born or both of whom may be native-born; and intergenerational, meaning intermarriage between two people of the same ethnoracial group who are from different immigrant generations. These categories often overlap: for instance, many internativity intermarriages are also ethnoracial intermarriages.
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From page 348... ...
Black immigrant women, in particular, are far less likely than other immigrant women to cross racial/ ethnic lines and integrate through marriage with non-Hispanic whites, 3 Table 8-1 includes only those marriages formed in the United States, which best reflects contemporary U.S. marriage market conditions and processes of marital integration.
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. In contrast, only 54.4 percent of immigrant Asian women married other Asian immigrants; nearly one-third married non-Hispanic white men (29.5%)
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350 TABLE 8-1 Percentage Distributions of Immigrants and Natives Who Married in the Previous Year, 2008-2012 (multiracial individuals excluded) Marriages Formed in the Previous Year Same Race Native- Foreign- American Born Born White Black Indian Asian Hispanic N Native-born Men White 89.9 1.6 -- 0.6 0.5 2.0 4.2 60,440 Black 73.7 2.3 14.7 -- 0.5 1.3 5.6 6,233 American Indian 43.3 0.3 47.9 1.1 -- 2.0 4.7 669 Asian 35.6 26.4 28.7 0.6 0.1 -- 6.1 967 Hispanic 46.6 13.3 33.6 2.0 0.6 2.4 -- 6,039 Women White 90.2 1.5 -- 1.6 0.5 0.8 4.2 60,229 Black 85.8 4.3 6.0 -- 0.1 0.3 2.6 5,355 American Indian 40.8 0.0 46.6 4.6 -- 0.6 6.7 711 Asian 31.5 17.7 37.5 3.6 0.6 -- 6.9 1,093 Hispanic 42.5 17.8 32.4 4.8 0.3 1.0 -- 6,622
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Foreign-born Men White 47.3 37.2 -- 1.3 0.3 5.4 6.7 1,948 Black 23.6 55.2 12.7 -- 0.1 1.6 5.3 973 American Indian -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 5 Asian 8.9 75.8 11.1 0.7 0.1 -- 2.1 2,174 Hispanic 22.5 62.4 12.5 0.9 0.2 1.2 -- 5,229 Women White 50.2 37.6 -- 2.4 0.2 1.8 6.6 1,926 Black 18.7 68.8 7.2 -- 0.1 0.7 3.3 780 American Indian -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 8 Asian 8.4 54.4 29.5 1.9 0.2 -- 4.4 3,025 Hispanic 16.8 68.3 11.6 1.7 0.2 0.7 -- 4,774 NOTE: "White" in this table actually means non-Hispanic white. SOURCE: Adapted from Lichter et al.
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of third and higher generation Hispanic American women married Hispanic immigrants. In contrast, only 4.6 percent of Hispanic immigrant women married non-Hispanic white men.
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(2011) , based on concatenated files of the March Current Population Survey (1995-2008)
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visa and citizenship, which means that current immigration laws play a potentially large role in creating conditions that can either favor or discourage immigrant integration through marriage to an American citizen (Bohra-Mishra and Massey, 2015)
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. Marriage migration occurs at lower rates in the United States than other developed countries, which tend to include those with lowest-low fertility rates (e.g., South Korea)
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The share of multiracial infants in the United States rose from 1 percent in 1970 to 10 percent in 2013 (Pew Research Center, 2015)
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The rise in ethnoracial intermarriage is likely to continue, if only for demographic reasons. The demographic shifts in the young adult population will enhance the relative roles of the U.S.-born Asian and Hispanic populations, which have relatively high ethnoracial intermarriage rates, and depress the relative size of the U.S.-born non-Hispanic white population, thereby generating demographic pressures for increased ethnoracial intermarriage by its members.
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represent a large second-order demographic effect of massive new immigration in America. Immigrant fertility has helped offset below-replacement levels of fertility among America's non-Hispanic white majority, the effects of which include rapid population aging and widespread natural decrease in many parts of the United States (Johnson and Lichter, 2008)
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. For migrants who come to America and stay, exposure to new cultural and behavioral norms about family formation in immigrant receiving areas also means that fertility patterns play out unevenly in established immigrant gateways and new destinations.
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Research indicates that fertility rates can be biased if they are estimated using data on births from vital registration sources and female population size from other sources (Parrado 2011)
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. Differentials in Fertility among Immigrants Fertility rates vary considerably among America's new immigrant populations, a fact that implies uneven patterns of cultural integration and economic incorporation (i.e., because of the strong links between SES and fertility)
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Significantly, not unlike the U.S. teen population overall, Hispanic teen fertility rates have recently plummeted, dropping from 65 per 1000 women ages 15-19 in 1990 to 38 in 2012 (Martin et al., 2015)
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Limited availability of publicly funded family planning clinics, lack of foreign-language capacity among health care providers, and restrictions on access to health care by legal status may also contribute to higher fertility rates among lower-income and immigrant Hispanic women, particularly in new destinations (DeRose et al., 2007; Kearney and Levine, 2009)
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Another feature of the living arrangements of first generation children of immigrants is their overrepresentation in family households without a co-residential parent, especially among Hispanics and blacks. The overall Hispanic percentages reflect the relatively high percentage of children from Central America who live separately from their parents (9%)
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Immigrant Adults Family formation among adult immigrants may either precede or follow migration to the United States. Regardless of when it occurs, however, family formation processes have a significant bearing on adult living arrangements.
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An important question is whether these cohabiting unions represent a new pattern of Americanization, one characterized by less stable families and by weaker associational linkages between (racially 10 When comparing the marriage and cohabitation rates of immigrants and natives, it is important to note that, in many cases, important cultural differences exist in the definition of marriage between both groups. For example, research indicates that common-law marriages are very common among Caribbean immigrants, although these marriages may not be legally recognized in the United States as legal marriage (Grace and Sweeney 2014; Lincoln et al., 2008)
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TABLE 8-5 Percentage Living with or without Married Spouses, Alone, in Other Arrangements, or Cohabiting (individuals ages 20 to 34) Married, Married, Lives with Lives with Others Spouse Spouse Other Family in Nonfamily Present Absent Cohabiting Lives Alone Members Households Hispanic First generation 49.6 3.8 7.9 3.3 23.7 11.8 Second generation 30.7 1.6 8.4 4.8 46.4 8.1 Third+ generation 32.1 1.3 12.3 6.3 37.9 10.1 Asian First generation 49.7 3.4 3.7 8.6 23.5 11.1 Second generation 20.5 1.0 6.5 9.6 48.5 13.9 Third+ generation 21.8 0.8 7.8 7.7 44.7 17.2 Black First generation 32.9 4.8 5.5 12.4 34.8 9.7 Second generation 13.0 0.7 6.8 12.6 58.3 8.6 Third+ generation 18.7 1.2 9.4 12.1 51.1 7.5 White First generation 54.0 2.0 6.8 7.8 19.2 10.3 Second generation 38.8 0.9 9.5 8.8 32.0 10.0 Third+ generation 44.4 0.8 11.5 7.2 25.1 11.0 SOURCE: Data from 2005-2014 March Community Population Survey.
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. The changing living arrangements of immigrant populations are consistent with generational shifts in marriage, and, more generally, from America's continuing retreat from marriage overall.
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. With increasing female labor force participation, improvements in the economic fortunes of immigrant women result in the adoption of more egalitarian gender roles within immigrant families (Foner, 1997; Menjívar, 2003)
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. There is no conclusive evidence regarding how these arrangements affect immigrant integration.
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Immigrant integration also means that the families of new arrivals may increasingly reflect the unprecedented shifts in marriage and family life in the United States and other rich countries over the past several decades, which include the "retreat from marriage," more childbearing outside marriage, higher rates of nonmarital cohabitation, and increasing divorce and remarriage (Landale, Oropesa, and Bradatan, 2006; Sassler, 2010)
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The continuing rise in ethnoracial intermarriages also suggests a possible melding of family life and demographic processes across America's culturally diverse populations. The potential influences on family life are hardly asymmetrical, that is, only extending from natives to immigrants (Alba and Nee, 2002)
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. The burden of deportation on children in Mexican immigrant families.
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Household structure and economic resources among Mexican immigrant families. Journal of Family Issues, 35(1)
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, Across Generations: Immigrant Families in America (pp.
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. Older people in America's immigrant families: Dilemmas of dependence, integration, and isolation.
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