Establishing Immigrant Legacies: A Study of Immigrant Homeownership in the United States
Open Access
- Author:
- Sanchez, Luis Alberto
- Graduate Program:
- Sociology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- July 16, 2013
- Committee Members:
- Ralph Salvador Oropesa, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Ralph Salvador Oropesa, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Barrett Alan Lee, Committee Member
John Iceland, Committee Member
Suet Ling Pong, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Immigrant Assimilation
Homeownership
Latinos
Immigration - Abstract:
- This dissertation focuses on the intersection of homeownership and immigrant assimilation. Homeownership is emphasized because of its importance in establishing positive legacies crucial to social mobility of subsequent generations. The dissertation addresses three questions related to immigrant homeownership. First, how are immigrants and subsequent generations faring in the transition to first-time homeownership? Second, how does immigrant homeowner attainment differ in non-traditional settlement areas commonly described as “new destinations?” Lastly, how does immigrant homeownership influence immigrant children’s educational attainment? The dissertation consists of three substantive studies. The first is a longitudinal analysis of the transition to first-time homeownership among a cohort of youths followed from 1979 to 2009 using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY, 1979). In particular, it examines ethno-generational group differences in first-time homeownership over an observation period that spans thirty years while testing theories of straight-line and segmented assimilation. The second study assesses patterns of immigrant homeownership in traditional and non-traditional settlement areas using data from the 2011 American Community Survey (ACS) to examine homeownership rates among foreign-born Mexicans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans. The final study investigates whether homeownership influences social mobility among subsequent generations using data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) to examine the educational attainment of a variety of immigrant groups from San Diego, California. I find immigrant homeownership is shaped by a variety of factors beyond socioeconomic resources, including settlement area and life-course characteristics. In addition, racial and ethnic group variation in homeownership rates exists despite controlling for individual factors. Furthermore, the inequalities in homeownership may influence the mobility of future generations as I found homeownership to have a positive influence on children’s educational outcomes.