Date of Award

1-1-2014

Language

English

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

College/School/Department

Department of Sociology

Content Description

1 online resource (ii, 57 pages) : illustrations

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Samantha Friedman

Committee Members

Nancy Denton, Zai Liang

Keywords

2.5 Generation, Generations, Housing, Race and Ethnicity, Residential Attainment, Minorities, Immigrants, Emigration and immigration, Ethnic relations, Social conditions

Subject Categories

Sociology

Abstract

Numerous studies have examined the residential attainment of immigrants by generational status. This research has found that the second generation or children of immigrants experience better residential quality than first generation immigrants, although these outcomes have varied by race and ethnicity. For blacks, this has often not been the case due to discrimination and structural constraints in society. Since most studies have defined second generation as comprised of children or adults with at least one foreign-born parent, they have overlooked whether there is a difference in the residential attainment of second generation members with one foreign-born and one native-born parent compared to those with two foreign-born parents. This study builds upon existing research by including the 2.5 generation - defined as children of one foreign-born parent and one native-born parent - as distinct from the second generation, which only includes children of two immigrant parents, in examining the residential attainment. By using data from the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey, this study examines differences in residential attainment by generational status incorporating this distinction between the second and 2.5 generations. The results show support for the spatial assimilation theory primarily for whites and Hispanics. Both whites and Hispanics show generational improvements in residential attainment. Particularly, Hispanics show improvements sooner in the 2.5 generation than in the later generations, suggesting that there is a positive effect to having a native-born parent. In support for the segmented assimilation theory, blacks show a generational decline in residential attainment, especially in the 2.5 generation. Unlike for Hispanics, this suggests that having a native-born parent has a negative effect on residential attainment for blacks.

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