More than Duration of Residence: Immigration and Children’s Well-Being
Children of immigrants are an increasingly large proportion of the child population in the United States. As their numbers increase, a large body of scholarship has been devoted to explaining the gaps in socioeconomic well-being, educational achievement and health disparities among children of immigrants and their higher generation counterparts. There is little consensus about whether these children are ‘successful’ or not. This presentation uses the case of Mexican origin children in the United States to demonstrate the importance of migration timing, family context and community characteristics for understanding children’s well-being. Data from US Census, national surveys and a local case study are used to illustrate the sources of diversity that lead to differential outcomes for young children.
