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The Integration of Immigrants into American Society (2015)

Chapter: 8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration

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Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
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8

Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration

The family is a fundamental institution of human societies, but family structure—size, composition, and a family’s set of interconnected social relationships—can shift rapidly over time, as it has in the United States (Cherlin, 2010; Sassler, 2010), and can vary enormously from one society to another (Lesthaeghe, 2010). However, all families serve the basic functions of regulating sexual expression and procreation, providing child care and socialization, and imposing agreed-upon social roles and rules of lineage on family members. For this report, “providing socialization” refers to the fact that all families transmit culture—including social mores and customs, language, and belief systems, from parental to filial generations. Immigrant families are therefore cornerstones of the process of social integration (Clark et al., 2009; Glick, 2010). Families and kin networks provide a cultural safe haven for immigrants to this country, but they are also a launching point for integrating their descendants into American society. Immigrant families are where the second generation first learns to become Americans, separating themselves from the cultural repertories of their foreign-born parents, who are located at a different, typically earlier, point along the integration continuum.

In this chapter, the panel examines patterns of marriage and family formation among immigrants and their descendants. 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

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
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familialism1 (especially among some Hispanic immigrant groups). Finally, we look at differences and similarities in household structure between native-born and immigrant groups, and we discuss how these factor into immigrant integration.

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). Intermarriage of immigrants with native-born Americans who differ in any one or more of these characteristics arguably represents a form of social integration, as immigrants and native-born of differing backgrounds merge within families and blur cultural distinctions and national-origin differences in their new American identity. Historically, intermarriage between racial- and ethnic-minority immigrants and native-born whites has been considered the ultimate proof of integration for the former and as a sign of “assimilation”2 (Gordon, 1964; Alba and Nee, 2003). When the rate of interethnoracial or interfaith marriage is high (e.g., between Irish Americans and non-Irish European Americans or between Protestants and Catholics), as happened by the late 20th century for the descendants of the last great immigration wave, the significance of group differences generally wanes (Alba and Nee, 2003). Intermarriage stirs the ethnic melting pot and blurs the color lines. Because a large share of the post-1965 wave of immigrants is perceived as “nonwhite,” intermarriage of these immigrants and their descendants with native-born non-Hispanic whites has the potential to transform racial and ethnic boundaries even further.

The marriage and intimate partner choices of immigrants and the second generation shed light on the strength or permeability of social boundaries separating them from the mainstream or the host society. The boundary concept alludes to the everyday social distinctions that orient our ideas about, attitudes toward, and behavior in relation to others. It distinguishes “us” from “them,” insiders from outsiders, and it defines at a societal level who can relate to whom, in what way, and under what circumstances.

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1 Familialism is the cultural value that emphasizes close family relationships (e.g., Campos et al., 2008).

2 Assimilation in this context refers to Milton Gordon’s (1964, pp. 80-81) classic conceptualization of structural assimilation, meaning the entry of members of an ethnic minority into “the social cliques, clubs, and institutions of the core society at the primary group level.” In this formulation, intermarriage between ethnic minorities and majority non-Hispanic whites was both a sign and an outcome of assimilation, which in turn diminished the importance of minority ethnic identity and relaxed social boundaries. For further discussion of this concept and Gordon’s influence on this field, see Alba and Nee (1997).

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
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Yet intermarriage is not only affected by such social boundaries; it can in turn diminish or even redefine existing social and cultural boundaries. Marriage is not just an intimate, co-residential relationship between two individuals; it brings together distinct family and friendship networks that, in light of the marriage, now overlap in significant ways. 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.

Intermarried couples—particularly in ethnoracial intermarriages—represent associational bridges between the two populations, connecting family and friends with different or unfamiliar backgrounds. Through childbearing, ethnoracial intermarriage can also give rise to a new generation of Americans whose experiences and identities are novel compounds of two or more ethnoracial backgrounds (Alba and Foner, 2015). Intermarriage may contribute to a “blurring” of social boundaries and lead to more hybrid forms of cultural and social identity. Mixed-race individuals in an ethnoracial intermarriage may operate on both sides of the boundary or may not be fully accepted by either side.

Incidence of Intermarriage

Trends in intermarriage of immigrants with the general population of native-born therefore provide an indirect measure of social integration. The frequency of ethnoracial intermarriages between immigrants and native-born is profoundly affected by the boundaries of race and of Hispanic ethnicity, which remain distinct in today’s multiracial, multicultural society. The fact that the majority of immigrants to the United States are ethnoracial minorities (see Chapter 1) might therefore lead one to conclude that internativity marriages occur relatively infrequently. Yet more than half of the marriages involving immigrants between 2008 and 2012 included a native-born partner (Lichter et al., 2015a). While the odds of endogamous marriages (among natives and among immigrants) are about 30 times greater than the odds of exogamous marriages (between natives and immigrants) (Lichter et al., 2015a), the overall picture suggests that marriages between immigrants and the native-born have increased significantly over time. Social and cultural boundaries between native- and foreign-born populations are therefore perhaps less clearly defined than in the past. Ethnoracial

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

intermarriage is also on the rise: today about one of every seven marriages (15.1% in 2010) is an interracial or interethnic marriage, more than twice the rate in 1980 (6.7%) (Wang, 2012; Frey, 2014) and many of these are internativity intermarriages or involve the descendants of post-1965 immigrants. Immigrants have therefore contributed enormously to America’s shifting patterns of racial mixing in intimate and marital relationships.

Intermarriage Rates by Race and Ethnicity

Although both internativity and ethnoracial intermarriage is increasing, ethnoracial background still clearly shapes trajectories of intermarriage between immigrants and the native-born. For instance, Lichter and colleagues (2015a) found that non-Hispanic white immigrants were far more likely to marry the native-born than were immigrants from other racial groups (see Table 8-1).3 Non-Hispanic white immigrants were also much more likely to marry native-born non-Hispanic whites than were other ethnoracial immigrant groups. Native-born non-Hispanic whites were the most endogamous of any group studied: around 90 percent of them married another native-born non-Hispanic white person.

Native-born Hispanics follow a different pattern: the number of native-born Latino/as who marry foreign-born Hispanics (17.8% of native-born women and 13.3% of native-born women) is much larger than the percentage of native-born non-Hispanic whites who married foreign-born non-Hispanic whites (Table 8-1). Hispanic native-born individuals, through marriage with their foreign-born counterparts, may provide a “helping hand” in the integration process of U.S. Hispanics. Native-born Hispanics are also much more likely than their non-Hispanic white counterparts to marry outside of their ethnoracial group: for instance, 33.6 percent of native-born Hispanic men and 32.4 percent of native-born Hispanic women married non-Hispanic whites (Table 8-1). This suggests that the social boundaries between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites may be waning.

Native-born blacks are also less likely than native-born non-Hispanic whites to be endogamous when it comes to internativity marriages, although they are more likely to marry other native-born blacks than Hispanics or Asians (Table 8-1). However, the data on ethnoracial marriages between blacks and other groups reinforce the idea that the so-called black-white color line operates similarly for immigrants as it does for natives, at least with respect to out-marriage patterns. 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,

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3Table 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.

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

despite high levels of education among black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean (Thomas, 2009). And Asian and Hispanic immigrants are much less likely to enter into intermarriages with blacks than they are with non-Hispanic whites. The results suggest that the continuing significance of race in America affects new immigrant minorities whose ancestors did not experience slavery or its aftermath directly, but who nevertheless now experience the long-standing consequences of this history in the form of inequality and racial hierarchy.

These data also demonstrate the overall asymmetrical gender patterns of internativity and ethnoracial intermarriage among Asians. Among all foreign-born, immigrant Asian men were most likely to be endogamous by nativity and race (75.8%). In contrast, only 54.4 percent of immigrant Asian women married other Asian immigrants; nearly one-third married non-Hispanic white men (29.5%) (Table 8-1). Native-born Asian men were also less likely than Hispanic and black native-born men to marry non-Hispanic whites, while the opposite was true for native-born Asian women. These patterns may be explained in part by cultural definitions of physical attractiveness, by patrilineal lines of descent among Asian populations, and by America’s previous military actions (e.g., during the Vietnam conflict) and the continuing (mostly male) military presence in parts of East and Southeast Asia. More recently, the rise of internet dating services has “rationalized” the marital search process while reinforcing marital preferences that sometimes favor Asian women (Feliciano et al., 2009).

The racial and ethnic difference in intermarriage rates between and among immigrants and the native born suggest that race continues to be a very salient factor in marriage decisions in the United States. Gender also plays a role: black immigrant women and Asian immigrant men in particular, have lower rates of intermarriage, both with the native-born and with other ethnoracial groups, which may affect their prospects for integration. Asian women, on the other hand, appear to be integrating faster than any other group by this measure of integration. The evidence from both internativity and ethnoracial intermarriage indicates that the changing racial mix of new immigrants is changing patterns of native-immigrant intermarriage and shifting its historical role in the assimilation process.

Generational Shifts in Ethnoracial Intermarriage

Generational distinctions in ethnoracial intermarriage, especially between immigrants and their descendants, also provide a window to America’s future (Alba and Foner, 2015). Many immigrants are already married when they arrive, and others sometimes lack the prerequisites needed for easy interaction with the native born population (e.g., English-language skills). The situation of the second generation, born and raised in the

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

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-Born Foreign-Born White Black American 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
Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×
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. (2015a).

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

United States, is much different (Lichter et al., 2011; Telles and Ortiz, 2008). Unfortunately, the decennial censuses and the American Community Survey do not provide information on the generational status of the U.S. population (see Chapter 10), but intergenerational patterns of ethnoracial intermarriage can be crudely gleaned from the March Current Population Survey (Brown et al., 2008; Lichter et al., 2011), by aggregating multiple annual files in order to identify sufficient numbers of (currently) intermarried couples (Brown et al., 2008).

Using this data, Lichter and colleagues (2008, 2011) showed that ethnoracial intermarriage, as a measure of integration with native-born non-Hispanic whites, increased from generation to generation among immigration populations. Generation-to-generation improvements in education (reported in Chapter 6) may also raise the likelihood of intermarriage with native-born non-Hispanic whites because education at the postsecondary level is often “liberating” with respect to influences of social origins, and is associated with exposure to others from a wider range of backgrounds (Alba and Nee, 2003; Qian and Lichter, 2007). Ethnoracial intermarriage is also strongly associated with other well-known proxies of social integration: length of time in the country, and naturalization status (Lichter et al., 2015a).

More specifically, second and third generation Hispanic American women are less likely to marry other Hispanics than are first generation Hispanic women (see Table 8-2). Whereas 94.4 percent of first generation Latinas ages 18-34 married other Hispanics between 1995 and 2008, these percentages declined to 81.3 percent in the second generation and to 67.7 percent in third and higher generations. By the third and higher generations, most ethnoracial intermarriage among Hispanic American women was to non-Hispanic white men (27.3%). Only a small percentage (10.5%) 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. Most (84.6%) married other Hispanic immigrants. Similar but less pronounced generational differences are also found among Asians, especially between the second and third generations (Lichter et al., 2008).4 The relatively high rates of intermarriage between native-born Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and non-Hispanic white Americans (discussed in more detail below) point to relaxing of social boundaries between these groups and to the influence that post-1965 immigrants and their descendants, the majority of whom are Hispanic or Asian, have on transforming social and cultural boundaries.

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4 Nearly 85 percent of first generation Asian women married Asian men. Endogenous marriages declined to 48 percent and 49 percent, respectively, for second and third generation Asian women (Lichter et al., 2008).

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

TABLE 8-2 Marriage Patterns of Hispanic Women by Generation, Ages 18-34, 1995-2008

Married to: Generation
1st 2nd 3rd and Higher Total
Hispanics 94.4 81.3 67.8 86.3
1st 84.6 39.7 10.5 60.5
2nd 7.8 28.3 12.1 12.6
3rd and higher 2.1 13.4 45.1 13.2
Non-Hispanics 5.6 18.7 32.2 13.7
White 4.6 14.8 27.3 11.3
Non-White 0.9 4.0 4.9 2.4
Total percent 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
N 4,927 1,528 1,811 8,266

SOURCE: Data from Lichter et al. (2011), based on concatenated files of the March Current Population Survey (1995-2008).

One caveat is that patterns and trends in ethnoracial intermarriage may be influenced by America’s recent uptick in cohabiting unions. Today, roughly 70 percent of the first unions of young adults are cohabiting unions rather than marriages (Manning et al., 2014), and cohabiting unions are more likely to be composed of ethnoracially mixed couples (Blackwell and Lichter, 2000). We discuss rates of cohabitation across racial/ethnic groups and their potential impacts in the section on family living arrangements below.

Factors Affecting Intermarriage

The growth of intermarriage—and integration—is being affected by (and in turn affecting) changing values and attitudes, including increasing tolerance for family members of other racial backgrounds. In a 2009 Pew Research poll, nearly two-thirds of respondents said they would be “fine” if a family member married someone of another race, regardless of the partner’s racial background (Wang, 2012). During the 1970s, by contrast, when the General Social Survey asked about a “close relative” marrying someone of another race, three-quarters said they would be at least “somewhat uneasy.”5 However, not all backgrounds were equally “fine” in the

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5 See http://www3.norc.org/GSS+Website/ [November 2015].

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

2009 results. White (meaning non-Hispanic white) partners were the most welcome (acceptable to 81% of nonwhites), and blacks were the least (acceptable to just 66% of nonblacks). Whites also were much more likely to accept interracial partners for others than for themselves (Herman and Campbell, 2012). Unfortunately, studies of changing marital preferences or attitudes about the desirability of dating or marrying immigrants across ethnoracial lines are limited, and further research on these topics needs to be done.

The frequency of ethnoracial intermarriage is affected by a variety of factors that operate through three main mechanisms: societal constraints on partner choice (e.g., antimiscegenation laws), exposure to potential partners, and preferences for partner characteristics. First and foremost, the increase in ethnoracial intermarriages must be seen against the long shadow cast by the pre-Civil Rights era, when antimiscegenation laws barred marriages between whites and members of other races, including Mexicans, in many states. These laws were invalidated in 1967 by a Supreme Court decision (Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1). Not surprisingly, ethnoracial intermarriage did not increase appreciably until the 1970s, even though interracial sexual intimacy dates back to slavery (Gullickson, 2006).

Internativity intermarriages historically were also constrained by the lack of opportunities to interact with potential spouses as co-equals. The recent rise in this kind of intermarriage implies greater opportunities than in the past. Many immigrants living in the United States today came to the United States to study or work temporarily, and U.S. natives often spend time abroad for similar reasons (Lichter et al., 2015a; Stevens et al., 2012). These international flows create new opportunities for interaction and a platform for intimacy, dating, cohabitation, and marriage between native and immigrant populations. America’s military presence in a large number of countries and wars fought in Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle East have also given native-born Americans the opportunity to meet and befriend potential spouses from around the globe. For immigrants, marriage to an American citizen is a route to a permanent U.S. 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). Moreover, new social media and Internet dating sites increasingly serve as a new form of the traditional marriage broker, aiding matches between foreigners and U.S. citizens. The globalism of electronic communication systems has created a global marriage market, where a promise of marriage made through the Internet can be the “cause” of immigration (Lichter et al., 2015a).

Massive immigration and growing racial and ethnic diversity over the past three decades also means that opportunities to marry within one’s own

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

ethnoracial or nationality group have increased, even as the opportunities to out-marry among native-born non-Hispanic whites has grown. Group size is an important factor accounting for immigrant-native variation in ethnoracial intermarriage. Generally, members of small groups are more likely to intermarry, partly because their members have more difficulty finding another group member who can satisfy the range of their preferences (e.g., education level, earning potential, age, physical appearance). A corollary is consequential for recent trends: as groups grow (or decline) in size, their rates of intermarriage decline (or grow). Intermarriage rates for Asians and Hispanics—populations with large immigrant shares—have recently declined or stalled (Qian and Lichter, 2007, 2011), even as they have increased among the non-Hispanic white, native-born population.

A narrow focus on broad pan-ethnic groups of immigrants hides substantial diversity in the processes of marital assimilation and social integration. And education may serve a different integrating function for some populations than others (e.g., Asian groups, where the majority achieves a high level of education). Although marriage has historically been regarded as the final step in the assimilation process (Gordon, 1964), intermarriage does not appear to be a large component of marriages in some immigrant groups (i.e., Indians) that are doing very well by other measures of integration. In such cases, it is perhaps inappropriate to regard intermarriage with non-Hispanic whites as a “final step.” Rather, marriage may simply be another indicator of social integration that is only loosely associated with other characteristics, such as education, which paves the most direct pathway to full membership in the American society.

Finally, individual preferences, including religious preferences, also represent a constraint on partnership choice. Religion’s influence is often disguised in the data about ethnoracial intermarriage, because the Census Bureau is prevented by law from collecting data on religion. Preferences for partners of the same religion, when they exist, may depress the likelihood of ethnoracial intermarriage, although evidence over time suggests that religion is less constraining than in the past. It is most relevant to Asian intermarriage, since some Asian groups have the most members of such non-Judeo-Christian religions as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. Other large immigrants groups, such as Mexicans, are largely Christian, which may promote intermarriage with America’s Christian majority (Qian et al., 2012). Nevertheless, the United States is not witnessing much second-generation transnational marriage, a phenomenon associated with Muslim groups in Europe, whose second generation members frequently choose partners who come directly from their parents’ home regions (Alba and Foner, 2015; Bean and Stevens, 2003). 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).

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

Consequences of Intermarriage

An important impact of internativity and interracial intermarriage is on family networks, which become more racially mixed. The magnitude of this impact is larger than the rate of intermarriage because of a multiplier effect: any single individual has a “risk” of exposure to a racially different relative through multiple marriages of close kin (Goldstein, 1999). A recent survey indicates that more than a third (35%) of Americans say that one of their “close” kin is of a different race (Wang, 2012).

Another powerful impact of intermarriage is mixed-race children. The share of multiracial infants in the United States rose from 1 percent in 1970 to 10 percent in 2013 (Pew Research Center, 2015). The growth of multiracial children was especially large among the newborn children of black-white and Asian-white couples, whose numbers almost doubled over a decade (Frey, 2014). However, the number of mixed-race children is undoubtedly underestimated, because many multiracial couples identify their children as single race, a legacy of the “one drop rule” (Frey, 2014; Lee and Bean, 2010).

The social and economic implications of racial identity—especially mixed-race identity—are often unclear. There is some evidence that mixed-race children, for example, tend to have higher rates of poverty than white children, but children of white intermarried parents often enjoy higher socioeconomic status (SES) than children of minority parents (Bratter and Damaske, 2013). Minority-white couples have more income on average than do endogamously married couples of the same minority origin. This difference is especially large for Hispanics, and Asian-white couples have the highest income of all (Wang, 2012).

One indicator of mixed-race children’s circumstances is where they live. An analysis of residential segregation patterns of mixed-race individuals in the United States shows that mixed-race individuals are “in-between” the single race groups (Bennett, 2011). Those who are a mixture of Asian and white are less segregated from whites than single-race Asians and less segregated from Asians than single-race whites. The same is true for individuals with both black and white heritage (Bennett, 2011).

Additional insight comes from the personal experiences of mixed-race children—the degree to which they feel accepted in mainstream settings and the choices they make in terms of marriage partners. In-depth interviews indicate that mixed-race young adults with non-Hispanic white and Asian or Hispanic ancestry may not perceive any impediments to mixing in the mainstream society and feel they have the option to identify along ethnic lines or as non-Hispanic whites, without having their decisions questioned by outsiders or institutions (Lee and Bean, 2010). Children of black-white unions, however, find that they are often seen as mainly black, underscoring

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

the continued stigma attached to African ancestry in the United States (Lee and Bean, 2010; Childs, 2005).

Data on the partnership patterns of children of mixed unions are scant, but Telles and Ortiz (2008) found that individuals with one Mexican and one non-Mexican parent have intermarriage rates with non-Hispanic white partners five times higher than individuals whose parents were both Mexican. This suggests that mixed Mexican/non-Hispanic white individuals are raised in much more mainstream contexts, and generally find acceptance there. Analysis of out-marriage frequencies by Asians when individuals of mixed Asian/non-Hispanic white ancestry are included suggests a similar conclusion for them (Qian and Lichter, 2011).

The Paradoxes of Intermarriage

The rise of ethnoracial intermarriage in recent decades is “normalizing” marriage across major racial and ethnic boundaries. In many parts of the country, intermarriage has become sufficiently common that many native-born Americans know intermarried couples, in family or friendship networks, or at school or work, or encounter them in public places. This normalization is reflected in the profound shift toward more accepting attitudes since the 1970s.

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. In addition, the size of the mixed-race group among young adults will grow, and its members’ marriages, almost by definition, contribute to additional mixing in family networks.

Yet the ethnoracial intermarriage rates of the largest immigrant-origin groups, Asians and Hispanics, may be simultaneously leveling off as a result of continuing immigration. There is no numerical contradiction between an overall rise in intermarriage and stability, even some decline, in these key rates. There are several structural forces operating on them: expanding sizes of groups, which tend to depress ethnoracial intermarriage, and advancing generational distributions and rising education levels among Hispanics and some Asians, which tend to lift them.

Currently, the ethnoracial intermarriage rates of the Asian and Hispanic groups are far short of the intermarriage rates of earlier European-origin groups. Intermarriage among European-origin immigrant groups were sufficiently high in the 20th century—around 80 percent for U.S.-born Italians (Alba and Nee, 2003)—to undermine group distinctions among the great

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

majority of whites. Today, the intermarriage rates of U.S.-born Asians and Latinos are generally in the 30-50 percent range, depending on the specific group and the generation. We cannot expect the same level of group dissolution that occurred for the descendants of the earlier waves of immigrants any time in the near future.

Moreover, marriage across ethnoracial lines may not always be an integrating force, as the evidence about black-white marriages suggests. It is important to avoid the assumption that intermarriages hold a uniform significance for intergroup relations. In an intermarriage with a non-Hispanic white partner, the minority partner may not be fully accepted by white family members (Childs, 2005; Song, 2010; Parker and Song, 2009). The mixed-race children of an intermarriage may not gain acceptance in the mainstream society; they may be marginalized and forced to find their home in the minority community. Yet the increase in intermarriage and the growth of the mixed-race population indicates that while intermarriage may not yet be dissolving ethnoracial group boundaries to the extent that it did for the last wave of European immigrants, it is nevertheless having a pronounced effect on the society as a whole.

CHILDBEARING AND FAMILY FORMATION AMONG IMMIGRANTS

The childbearing patterns of immigrants—average family size, parity distribution, and timing of fertility (e.g., teen fertility)—are often distinctive, but they are transformed as immigrant populations become more fully incorporated into American society (Parrado, 2011; Parrado and Morgan, 2008). The high rates of fertility among some new immigrant populations (especially Hispanics) 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). Immigrant fertility has augmented the size of America’s newest generation, but, just as importantly, it has contributed to rapid changes in America’s ethnic and racial composition through generational replacement. Indeed, growing racial and ethnic diversity starts from the “bottom-up”—with newborn infants and children (Lichter 2013). The majority of newborn babies today have minority parents (Frey, 2014). It is these families—and the children they bear and rear—who will ultimately determine America’s place in the global economy. It is immigrant families who will perform the essential tasks of providing economic support and good parenting to insure their children’s ultimate success and integration

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
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as fully engaged citizens in American society (Alba and Holdaway 2013; Glick 2010).

U.S. immigration policies are guided by principles of family reunification that provide an orderly pathway to legal residence for immigrant families. But the experiences and adaptation of immigrants also sometimes reflect the traumatic influences of conditions they escaped from their native countries (e.g., war, religious or ethnic oppression, and economic displacement). The experience of immigration itself also generates a unique set of influences on family formation processes, often through their effects on spousal separation and economic dislocations (Parrado and Flippen, 2012). For unauthorized immigrants, fertility also results in growing numbers of families with mixed-legal status (Passel and Taylor, 2010). America’s immigration and refugee policies, which determine who gets to come and who gets to stay, often on the basis of marriage and other kin relationships, therefore affect family structure and family formation (Landale et al., 2011). 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.

Immigrant Childbearing

Immigration draws mostly on men and women in early adulthood, which means that immigration has an out-sized effect on the age distribution—and fertility—at the destination. Immigration increases the concentration of women in the reproductive ages (Lichter et al., 2012), even as the size of America’s majority of non-Hispanic white females of reproductive age has declined absolutely (Johnson and Lichter, 2008, 2010). Although immigration is a disruptive process that initially leads to short-time declines in fertility, immigrants still have higher fertility levels than US-born women (Choi, 2014; Frank and Heuveline, 2005; Lichter et al., 2012). Immigrant women today are among the few population groups whose fertility is at or above the U.S. replacement level of 2.1 (Dye, 2008; Jonsson and Rendall, 2004; Parrado, 2011).

The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) perhaps best captures the differences between immigrant and native-born fertility.6Table 8-3 provides TFRs based on analyses from the 2012 American Community Survey (ACS) data on births in the previous year. These data confirm the higher fertility among

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6 The TFR indicates how many children women today would bear if they lived out their reproductive lives following 2012 age-specific fertility rates.

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

TABLE 8-3 Total Fertility Rates for Immigrants and U.S.-Born Natives

Immigrants U.S.-Born
Hispanic 2.54 2.01
Black 2.48 1.83
White 2.05 1.84
Asian 2.10 1.69

All

2.31

1.86

SOURCE: Data from the 2012 American Community Survey.

immigrants than natives.7 The TFR was 2.31 for immigrant women and 1.86 for natives. This large native-immigrant differential is also observed for each major racial and ethnic group (see Table 8-3). Such high rates of immigrant fertility are not unprecedented historically. For example, the percentage of U.S.-born children with immigrant mothers is quite similar to the corresponding proportion observed during the era of rapid immigration from Europe (Livingstone and Chon, 2012). Period estimates of fertility such as the TFR are however limited by their inability to capture changes in the timing of childbearing that are usually associated with migration processes (Choi, 2014; Parrado 2011).

Another perspective focuses on changing childbearing patterns across immigrant generations. Discussions about intergenerational trends typically center on Hispanics, an immigrant population for which previous studies often find inconsistent evidence of the usual generational declines in fertility (e.g., Frank and Heuveline, 2005), perhaps because traditional cross-sectional measures of immigrant generations do not effectively capture intergenerational changes in fertility or other demographic events (Parrado and Morgan 2008; Smith 2003). Aligning immigrant and biological generations to approximate childbearing differences between the foreign-born and their offspring indicates that there is in fact a consistent pattern of intergenerational fertility declines among Hispanics (Choi 2014; Parrado and Morgan 2008). Among Mexican-origin Hispanics, for example, Choi (2014) reported that fertility levels decreased within and across generations “as immigrants deviate from their pre-migration fertility patterns and increasingly adopt those of whites” (Choi, 2014, p. 703). Similar trajectories

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7 The main advantage associated with using ACS data is that they allow us to use data on births and the female population in the reproductive ages from the same source. 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).

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

of intergenerational fertility declines are evident historically when using estimates of Completed Fertility Rates (CFR) among married women. These estimates provide additional evidence of cultural assimilation, as Hispanic fertility levels have dropped from generation to generation. Of course, these historical estimates cannot be extrapolated neatly to the situation today, where continuing immigration of Hispanics may be reinforcing high fertility in some immigrant receiving areas through a cultural replenishment (Jiménez, 2010; Lichter et al., 2012).

It appears that among Asians, too there is a decline in completed fertility between the first and third generations (although the absence of data identifying Asians in the 1986 and 1988 June CPS makes it impossible to fully construct generational trends in Asian fertility). In general, very little attention is given to the fertility outcomes of Asian immigrants in the existing literature. An exception is a recent working paper by Alvira-Hammond and Guzzo (2014) based on data from the June fertility supplement of the Current Population Survey (2000-2010), which documented exceptionally low completed fertility (at ages 40-44) among Asian immigrants. For each generation—first, second, and third and higher—Asian fertility rates were below replacement levels, but especially in the second generation.

Other available evidence supports a few additional observations. South East Asian refugee groups usually have high fertility levels after their arrival but with increasing U.S. residence have fertility outcomes that converge with those of natives (Kahn, 1994). Furthermore, Asian immigrants from low-fertility contexts such as mainland China have lower overall fertility levels than Asian immigrants from Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Taiwan (Hwang and Saenz 1997). When only post-immigration outcomes are considered, a clear pattern of comparatively higher fertility is observed among Chinese immigrants compared to immigrants from these countries (Hwang and Saenz, 1997).

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). As we noted above, Hispanic immigrant fertility is well above both overall U.S. rates and the fertility rates for other immigrant groups (Lichter et al., 2012). Foreign-born Hispanics had a General Fertility Rate8 (GFR) of 84 births per 1000 women in 2005-2009, while native-born Hispanics had a GFR of 71, and the overall U.S. GFR was 58. But fertility also varies considerably by national origin. A recent study by Lichter et al.

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8 The GFR is defined as the number of births per 1000 women of reproductive age (15-50).

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

(2012) showed that the Mexican-origin population had higher rates of fertility (GFR = 85) than Hispanic fertility overall (GFR = 77). High Hispanic fertility rates are being driven largely by fertility among the Mexican-origin population. One possible explanation is that Mexican–origin immigrants, in anticipation of moving to the United States, have lowered their fertility but subsequently resumed their higher fertility to compensate for a fertility shortfall caused by immigration (Choi 2014).

The age and marital status profiles of immigrant fertility also matter. Early childbearing is positively associated with cumulative fertility and completed family size; teen childbearing may also disrupt schooling and upend prospects for upward socioeconomic mobility and economic incorporation, particularly as early fertility is higher for women of lower SES. Moreover, most childbearing today among teenagers is overwhelmingly composed of out-of-wedlock births, although this is less true among Hispanics than other population groups. 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). Teen fertility rates among Hispanics were also lower among the foreign-born than the native-born in 1994 and 2005 (DeLeone, Lichter, and Strawderman 2009). Teen and unmarried pregnancies are associated with preterm deliveries and low birthweight, which represents a public health concern for minority populations, including new immigrant mothers and children. Despite the decline in teen pregnancy, in 2013 53.2 percent of all Hispanic births occurred to unmarried women (Martin et al., 2015), compared with 40.6 percent for the overall U.S. population. However, a large share of Hispanic out-of-wedlock births, perhaps two-thirds, occur within stable marriage-like co-residential unions (Lichter et al., 2014).

The geographic spread of Hispanics into “new destinations” also suggests that the spatial patterning of fertility (and incorporation) among new immigrants may be uneven (Parrado and Morgan 2008; Waters and Jimenez 2005). Among Hispanics, fertility rates are considerably higher on average in new immigrant destinations than in established gateways.9 In 2005-2009, the GFR among foreign-born Hispanics living in new destinations was 94, compared with 78 in established gateways (Lichter et al., 2012). In new destinations, fertility rates were especially high among Hispanics who arrived in the United States 1-5 years ago (GFR = 1.34), but much lower among those who arrived within the past year (GFR = 46),

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9Lichter et al. (2012) defined new destinations on the basis of unusually rapid Hispanic population growth and a new presence in consolidated Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs) (i.e., multicounty areas) over the 1990-2000 time period. Established destinations also typically have rapid population growth rates, but, unlike new destinations, they had large Hispanic populations in 1990 (i.e., exceeding the national percentage of Hispanics).

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

suggesting a short-term “disruption effect” on fertility that is subsequently made up (Choi 2014; Lichter et al., 2012). The GFR for native-born Hispanics in new and established destinations were 76 and 70, respectively, indicating a similar geographic effect.

These high rates of fertility in new destinations cannot be explained by differences in age composition or by observed deficits in language ability or education. A subsequent follow-up study (Lichter et al., 2015b) showed that roughly 40 percent of Hispanic infants in new Hispanic destinations were “born poor,” that is, they were born to mothers who were defined by U.S. Census Bureau definitions as living in families with incomes below the official poverty income threshold. 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). Hispanic children born impoverished in new destinations begin life’s race behind the “starting line,” while undermining America’s promise of intergenerational mobility among second generation Hispanics.

FAMILY LIVING ARRANGEMENTS AMONG IMMIGRANTS

Families are transformed during immigration processes in ways that leave them significantly different from their counterparts in origin countries. For example, non-kin families are more prevalent among Mexican immigrants than in Mexico (Brown et al., 2008) while more integrated Asian immigrants are more likely to live in cohabiting unions than are the nonmigrants in many Asian countries (Brown et al., 2008). Immigrant family forms are therefore less a reflection of cultural preferences tied to immigrants’ ethnic origins than they are products of the social milieu at their destinations and the exigencies of immigrant life.

Immigrant Children

Among the specific influences that affect family dynamics are the unique challenges of immigration processes and the degree of integration. These challenges are particularly important for immigrant children and the elderly who are in the dependent stages of the life course (Kriz et al., 2000). During immigration families are relocated from the traditional sources of social support provided by members of their extended family and their friends in their origin countries (Suárez-Orozco et al., 2015). Furthermore, the rules of social engagement in their new societies are typically unclear,

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

constraining the adjustment of immigrant families to their new communities (Suárez-Orozco et al., 2015).

These barriers have significant implications for the socialization of children in new immigrant families. One implication is that the barriers limit the ability of parents to provide guidance to their children in educational and institutional contexts at a time when such guidance is needed to navigate new social spaces (Suárez-Orozco et al., 2008, 2015). New immigrants face additional challenges in their efforts to establish new networks while navigating short-term economic constraints after their arrival. They are more likely to live in extended-family households than their long-term immigrant peers (Leach, 2014). Extended-family households subsequently experience increased rates of turnover after meeting these temporary needs. Moreover, successful integration increases the rates at which immigrants leave their families to marry and form their own independent households (Leach, 2014; Van Hook and Glick, 2007).

Immigrant family configurations are perhaps most consequential in childhood, when the need for parental support is greatest. However, as shown in Table 8-4, there are a number of structural differences between the familial environments of the children of immigrants (both first and second generation) and those of their third and higher-generation peers. In the first generation, for example, there is a significant concentration of children in two-parent families in the major racial groups. These families are associated with lower risks of poverty, more effective parenting practices, and lower levels of stress (Landale et al., 2011; Amato, 2005). First generation children therefore largely live in families that provide them with a number of important contextual advantages. The prevalence of two-parent families continues to be high for second generation children; nevertheless, as shown in these estimates, the percentage of children in these families declines substantially between the second and third and higher generations. Among third and higher generation children, for example, approximately 40 percent of Hispanic children and 60 percent of black children live in single-parent households.

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%), while among blacks, residence in households without a co-residential parent is more highly prevalent among children from the Caribbean (12.7%).

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

TABLE 8-4 Living Arrangements of Children by Race and Generation Status (children between ages 0 and 17)

Two parent Single parent No resident Parent
Hispanic

First generation

70.0 23.0 7.0

Second generation

67.5 28.9 3.6

Third+ generation

54.1 40.1 5.8
Asian

First generation

82.1 13.7 4.2

Second generation

84.9 13.5 1.7

Third+ generation

75.3 21.4 3.3
Black

First generation

60.2 32.5 7.3

Second generation

58.7 37.8 3.6

Third+ generation

30.9 60.5 8.6
Non-Hispanic White

First generation

83.1 13.7 3.2

Second generation

82.2 16.6 1.3

Third+ generation

75.1 22.3 2.6

SOURCE: Data from 2005-2014 March Community Population Survey.

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. Integration presents a number of union status options to immigrants. Among them is the retreat from marriage along with an increased emphasis on nonmarital cohabiting relationships. As immigrants adopt new social norms, they may also increasingly view divorce and separation as normatively acceptable alternatives to a bad marriage (Qian 2013; Glick 2010). Declines in marriage and increases in union dissolution increase the likelihood that immigrants would live alone or in other nonfamily households.

Indeed, in the prime union formation ages (i.e., 20 to 34) shifts in living arrangements—from family to nonfamily households—are consistently observed across generations, especially between the first and second generation, and across ethnoracial groups. For example, data from the Current

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

Population Survey, reported in Table 8-5, indicate that married spouses living together are the statistical if not cultural norm among first generation immigrants. Except among blacks, approximately half of all foreign-born individuals live with married spouses. Nevertheless, these living arrangements decline between the first and second generations, and although they rebound slightly in the third and higher generation, they still remain less prevalent than they were in the first generation.

Another feature of these living arrangements is the tendency for some immigrants to live in households with absentee spouses. Such households are mainly found among blacks and Hispanics. This phenomenon underscores the potential for spousal separation across borders during the immigration process. The resulting families are often deemed transnational, and have toeholds in both the United States and their native land.

In contrast to marriage, however, cohabitating relationships have become more prevalent in the generations after immigration.10Table 8-5 shows that among Asians, for example, the prevalence of cohabitation is twice as high in the third generation than in the first. Some scholars suggest that because Asian cohabitation rates are higher among females, this differential reflects the possible role of cohabitation as an arrangement preceding the distinctively high levels of intermarriage between Asian women and non-Hispanic white men (Brown et al., 2008).

Across ethnoracial groups, the prevalence of cohabitation is highest among Hispanics, except among individuals in the second generation. High levels of cohabitation among Hispanics are a reflection of several influences. One of them is their disadvantaged socioeconomic profile. Hispanics have low levels of education and income, both of which are associated with a higher likelihood of cohabitation (Qian, 2013). Furthermore, Hispanics are distinguished by their tendency to view cohabitation as a step toward subsequent marriage rather than as an alternative to marriage (Oropesa, 1996). More generally, Qian (2013) found that about a third of all immigrants in cohabiting unions were previously divorced or separated. Thus, cohabitation may also play an important role in facilitating immigrant transitions between marriages. 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

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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). In general, differences in the definition of marriage could result in the underestimation of marriage rates among immigrants and may understate the decline in marriage between the first and second generations.

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

TABLE 8-5 Percentage Living with or without Married Spouses, Alone, in Other Arrangements, or Cohabiting (individuals ages 20 to 34)

Married, Spouse Present Married, Spouse Absent Cohabiting Lives Alone Lives with Other Family Members Lives with Others in Nonfamily 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.

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

diverse) family and kinship networks than is the case among married couples.

Immigrants without marital and cohabiting partners may choose to live with other related or unrelated individuals (e.g., Van Hook and Glick, 2007). Indeed, across ethnoracial groups, the percentage of immigrants living in such contexts increased from the first to second generation (Table 8-5). However, immigrants are more likely to live with other family members (e.g., siblings) than with nonrelatives in nonfamily households (Table 8-5).

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. In fact, these estimates suggest that as marriage rates have declined, the percentage of immigrants who have chosen to live with other family members even exceeds the percentage living in cohabiting relationships. Finally, although there are fewer immigrants living with other nonfamily members than with members of their families, living with nonrelated persons is generally a more preferred option compared to living alone, except among blacks (Table 8-5).

For elderly immigrants, families are particularly important for providing access to economic resources as well as being contexts in which they can provide and receive care (Treas and Mazumdar, 2002). Yet, the evidence on their living arrangements shown in Table 8-6 suggests that the significance of these functions varies widely across immigrant generations. First generation elderly immigrants, for example, mostly involve co-residence with both their spouses and their children. This is perhaps unsurprising; many foreign-born elderly do not participate in U.S. social benefit programs (Kritz et al., 2000; Hu, 1998). Co-residence with immediate family members may provide them with needed economic support in old age. In the second and third generations, however, the elderly are less likely to live with both spouses and children. Instead, they are increasingly more concentrated in households in which they live only with their spouses or by themselves.

The prevalence of these arrangements varies across race; for example, elderly blacks are most likely to live alone in the second and third generations, while their Asian, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic white peers most often live only with their spouses. More generally, elderly immigrants are considerably more likely to co-reside with members of their immediate families. However, there is little ethnoracial variation in the prevalence of these other arrangements across immigrant generations.

Family Functioning and Practices

Immigration is also associated with transformations in familial norms and the adoption of U.S. family ideals. For example, divorce increases dur-

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

TABLE 8-6 Living Arrangements of Elderly Immigrants Age 65 and Above by Race and Generation Status

Alone With Spouse Alone With Spouse and Children Other Arrangements
Hispanic

First generation

18.1 28.4 34.6 19.0

Second generation

25.1 36.8 22.1 16.0

Third generation

24.2 37.4 22.2 16.2
Asian

First generation

13.9 32.3 38.8 15.0

Second generation

24.0 38.4 20.7 17.0

Third generation

19.3 38.5 28.9 13.3
Black

First generation

26.3 20.3 31.1 22.3

Second generation

43.2 20.5 15.2 21.2

Third generation

36.4 25.5 16.7 21.5
Non-Hispanic White

First generation

26.3 44.8 18.1 10.7

Second generation

35.5 44.6 10.0 9.9

Third generation

28.1 50.2 11.4 10.3

SOURCE: Data from 2005-2014 March Community Population Survey.

ing immigrant integration even among immigrants from countries with low rates of divorce (Glick, 2010). 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). Increasing integration is also accompanied by notable shifts in immigrant parenting practices: immigrant families typically shift from using traditional practices such as corporeal punishment of children to a combination of less controversial parenting practices, consistent with widely accepted American norms (Waters and Sykes, 2009; Foner and Dreby, 2011).

Another consequence of immigration processes is the emergence of transnational families that reflect the dispersion of family members across international borders. These families are created by a number of specific circumstances including the decision of one or more family members to migrate leaving other family members, typically children, behind (Dreby, 2007, 2010; Nobles, 2011). In other cases immigrant parents send children back to the parents’ origin countries to ensure that their adolescent social-

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

ization occurs outside the United States (Orellana et al., 2001). Today, an increasing number of transnational families are a consequence of the deportation of undocumented immigrants who leave their U.S.-born children behind (Dreby, 2012).

Although transnational families are separated by international borders, many of them continue to invest in the cultivation of familial relationships and use them for instrumental purposes (Orellana et al., 2001). Their members are able to leverage resources, share caregiving responsibilities, and perform other social and economic functions, despite their residence in different countries (Abrego, 2009; Menjívar and Abrego, 2009; Suárez-Orozco et al., 2015). There is no conclusive evidence regarding how these arrangements affect immigrant integration. On the one hand, transnational families that send remittances to kin back home have fewer resources to use to support the welfare of their children here (Suárez-Orozco et al., 2015). On the other hand, transnational ties do decline as generational status increases (Levitt and Waters, 2002). As a result, even if these ties are maintained by immigrant parents, they could receive less emphasis among second generation children who are more fully incorporated into society (Levitt and Jaworsky, 2007; Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt, 1999).

Like native families, immigrant families are dynamic; they encounter ever-changing concerns within the context of rapid U.S. demographic and social changes, which in turn require family adaptation and cultural change. In addition, legal structures and policies may work to strengthen families or separate them (see Chapters 2 and 3). For instance, until recently, immigration laws did not recognize the gay and lesbian partners of immigrants under its definition of spouses (Romero, 2005). However, since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional, eligible individuals have been able to petition for the immigration of their same-sex spouses (Avanzado, 2013). What social scientists know about the ensuing consequences of these unions for integration remains limited, but based on the available evidence on immigrant families it seems clear that they generally go through critical transformations as they adjust to their new environments. These transformations are important and further research is needed to better understand how they adapt to their changing social circumstances.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The historical record makes clear that with each successive generation, immigrant populations have adapted to their new environments by assuming patterns of family structure—size and composition—that resemble those of their native-born counterparts and the majority white population. This occurred during the last century as the diverse families of European ethnic

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

groups merged through intermarriage and patterns of fertility and family living arrangements converged with the native-born population. Similar trends among today’s immigrants exist today, although racial barriers clearly have slowed the growth of ethnoracial intermarriage between some immigrants and natives. But while the rise in ethnoracial intermarriage among Hispanics and Asian populations has slowed over the past decade or two (Qian and Lichter, 2007, 2011), the share of the U.S. non-Hispanic white population that has married with other ethnoracial groups and immigrants has grown considerably, as opportunities to meet and befriend new immigrant minorities has increased.

Conclusion 8-1 Marriages between the native-born and immigrants, most of whom are ethnoracial minorities, appear to have increased significantly over time. Today, about one of every seven new marriages is an interracial or interethnic marriage, more than twice the rate a generation ago. Perhaps as a result, the social and cultural boundaries between native-born and foreign-born populations in the United States are much less clearly defined than in the past. Moreover, second and third generation individuals from immigrant minority populations are far more likely to marry higher-generation non-Hispanic whites than are their first generation counterparts. These intermarriages also contribute to the increase in mixed-race Americans.

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). Household or family extension among some immigrant populations also has slowly given way to the nuclear family system and the rise in nonfamily households (including cohabitation and living alone).

Conclusion 8-2 Immigrants’ divorce rates and out-of-wedlock birth rates start out much lower than native-born Americans, but over time and generations these rates increase, while the likelihood of their living in extended families with multiple generations under one roof declines. Thus immigrant and second generation children are much more likely to live in families with two parents than are third and later generation children, where the proportion of single-parent families converges toward the percentage for native-born children in U.S. families generally. Since single-parent families are more likely to be impoverished, this is a disadvantage going forward.

Suggested Citation:"8 Family Dimensions of Immigrant Integration." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21746.
×

Generational differences in family forms and demographic processes therefore may become larger in the future. Indeed, if benchmarked against the typical or average American family, immigrant integration clearly is a two-edged sword. The typical or average “family” today is a rapidly moving target. As America moves inexorably toward becoming a majority-minority society, the strong family and kinship networks often acknowledged among America’s largest immigrant groups, especially Mexicans and Asians, may increasingly influence national indicators of marriage, cohabitation, and fertility, slowing the decline in two-parent families in the United States. 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). Instead, the future is likely to bring new growth of family forms and patterns of kin relations that reflect bidirectional influences among population groups with culturally different patterns of family life. The speed and form in which this occurs, however, is unclear. This will depend heavily on the nature of social, economic, and political integration of today’s new immigrants and their children. It will also depend on patterns of intergroup exposure—in the neighborhoods and communities in which immigrants settle.

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The United States prides itself on being a nation of immigrants, and the country has a long history of successfully absorbing people from across the globe. The integration of immigrants and their children contributes to our economic vitality and our vibrant and ever changing culture. We have offered opportunities to immigrants and their children to better themselves and to be fully incorporated into our society and in exchange immigrants have become Americans - embracing an American identity and citizenship, protecting our country through service in our military, fostering technological innovation, harvesting its crops, and enriching everything from the nation's cuisine to its universities, music, and art.

Today, the 41 million immigrants in the United States represent 13.1 percent of the U.S. population. The U.S.-born children of immigrants, the second generation, represent another 37.1 million people, or 12 percent of the population. Thus, together the first and second generations account for one out of four members of the U.S. population. Whether they are successfully integrating is therefore a pressing and important question. Are new immigrants and their children being well integrated into American society, within and across generations? Do current policies and practices facilitate their integration? How is American society being transformed by the millions of immigrants who have arrived in recent decades?

To answer these questions, this new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine summarizes what we know about how immigrants and their descendants are integrating into American society in a range of areas such as education, occupations, health, and language.

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