Your immigration status affects your children’s prospects later in life, especially with regard to their future financial wellness. This is according to a new report, combining new and older research from UC Irvine and Pennsylvania State University scholars, which says that education is the culprit for affecting family wellness.
The report is based on research of Mexican-American children as part of a broader project tracking how Mexican immigrants and their families integrate into US society. It was discovered that the kids of unauthorized immigrant parents — particularly those whose mothers are in the country illegally — tend to wind up with fewer years of education than children whose parents are US citizens or are in the country legally. The effect can even trickle down to the next generation of children, albeit to a lesser degree.
The results of the report showed that – all else being equal – the unauthorized status of mothers alone appears to reduce children’s schooling by about a one-and-a-quarter. This means the difference between attending some college and not finishing high school, which can seriously affect the wellbeing of young adults. Not only do Americans without a high school diploma earn about half a million dollars less over their lifetimes, they also die about seven years earlier than those with some college.
When it came to the third generation, their disadvantage was estimated to be proportionately less, but nonetheless non-trivial. The researchers surmised that grandparents lacking legal status could be partly responsible for a schooling gap of about 1.1 years between male third-generation Mexican Americans and their non-Latino white peers. The report – which is part of a larger project funded by Brown University and the Russell Sage Foundation – explained that when families live ‘on the margins of society,’ it impedes how the entire family integrates across generations.
Not only does living on the margins affect your family’s integration, but also your bank balance. The report revealed that the first generation’s immigration status dramatically affects how much a family earns and saves, and how much gets passed along to future generations in property, education and other investments. Again, this effect trickles down to the third generation, because if your parents are here illegally, you may have to contribute more toward supporting your parents later in life.
Comments are closed.