CRCW Research

Immigrant Children and Families

The role of families in promoting intergenerational success is especially important for immigrant children. A number of Center for Research on Child Wellbeing associates are engaged in research that explores various aspects of this issue.

Alicia Adsera is comparing the economic situations of immigrant families in Europe to those of more settled families, revealing a significant lag in earnings for recent immigrants. She also looks at how these experiences differ among immigrants based on gender and national origin.

Patricia Fernández-Kelly is investigating the conditions surrounding second generation immigrants in Southern Florida and Southern California. She is exploring the ways that young people are adapting to a pluralistic society and discovering innovative ways to define that which is American.

Douglas Massey and his colleagues in the U.S. and Latin America have been involved in the collection of several large data sets, including the Mexican Migration Project (MMP); the Latin American Migration Project (LAMP), which focuses on documented and undocumented emigrants from Mexico and Latin America to the U.S.; and the New Immigrant Survey (NIS), which is the first-ever longitudinal survey of immigrants to the U.S. Massey is also the author of Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Age of Economic Integration, which analyzes the history of Mexico-U.S. immigration. Much of his current work concentrates on the assimilation and integration of immigrants over generations, including a study of new immigrant destinations with Marta Tienda.

Alejandro Portes has been directing the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) since the early 1990s. CILS helps researchers examine the adaptation processes of the immigrant second generation, defined as U.S.-born children with at least one foreign-born parent or children born abroad but brought at an early age to the United States. Portes recently began a new survey of immigrant children in Spain.

Marta Tienda and Sara McLanahan are working on a project that examines the wellbeing of migrant children and youth in both developed and developing countries. To gain perspective on the range of empirical research and available data on this topic, they commissioned two review papers and hosted a conference in Bellagio, Italy (2008), which brought together 25 researchers from 10 nations. Future plans for this initiative include a conference volume sponsored by the Jacobs Foundation and a volume of The Future of Children.