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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2023 Dec 8.
Published in final edited form as: Ann Am Acad Pol Soc Sci. 2018 Apr 25;677(1):131–138. doi: 10.1177/0002716218763293

Identifying the Later-Generation Descendants of U.S. Immigrants: Issues Arising from Selective Ethnic Attrition

BRIAN DUNCAN 1, STEPHEN J TREJO 2
PMCID: PMC10704382  NIHMSID: NIHMS1912344  PMID: 38076467

Abstract

Evaluating the long-term socioeconomic integration of immigrants in the United States requires analyses of differences between foreign-born and U.S.-born residents, as well as analyses across generations of the U.S.-born. Regrettably, though, standard data sources used to study these populations provide very limited information pertaining to generation. As a result, research on the U.S.-born descendants of immigrants often relies on the use of subjective measures of racial/ethnic identification. Because ethnic attachments tend to fade across generations, these subjective measures might miss a significant portion of the later-generation descendants of immigrants. Moreover, if such “ethnic attrition” is selective on socioeconomic attainment, it can distort assessments of integration and generational progress. We discuss evidence that suggests that ethnic attrition is sizable and selective for the second- and third-generation populations of key Hispanic and Asian national-origin groups, and that correcting for the resulting biases is likely to raise the socioeconomic standing of the U.S.-born descendants of most Hispanic immigrants relative to their Asian counterparts.

Keywords: racial/ethnic identification, generational mobility, immigrant integration

Historically, much of the socioeconomic mobility achieved by U.S. immigrant families has taken place across rather than within generations (Neidert and Farley 1985; Borjas 1994; Perlmann 2005). When evaluating the long-term integration of immigrants, it is therefore important to analyze differences not just between the foreign-born and U.S.-born, but also across generations of the U.S.-born (Farley and Alba 2002; Card 2005; Smith 2006). The ideal dataset for such an analysis would include information about the family tree of each individual, enabling us to identify which individuals have ancestors who immigrated to the United States from a particular country and how many generations have elapsed since that immigration took place. Information of this sort would also allow us to characterize the complexity of each individual’s immigrant roots in some detail, accounting for factors such as the specific national origins of an individual’s immigrant ancestors, whether the same national origins show up on both the paternal and maternal sides of the family tree, and how far removed from the current generation are the immigrant ancestors.

Unfortunately, the large, nationally representative data sources typically employed to study U.S. immigrants and their descendants provide very limited information pertaining to immigrant generations. Microdata sources such as the decennial U.S. Census, the American Community Survey (ACS), and the Current Populations Survey (CPS) report each respondent’s country of birth, thereby distinguishing foreign-born individuals (i.e., the first generation) from the U.S.-born population. Only the CPS, however, currently collects information about the countries of birth of each respondent’s parents, which allows the second generation (i.e., U.S.-born individuals who have at least one foreign-born parent) to be differentiated from higher generations of U.S.-born individuals. Furthermore, none of these surveys provides information about the countries of birth of an adult respondent’s grandparents, so the third generation cannot be precisely identified.

Because of these data limitations, research on the U.S.-born descendants of immigrants often must identify the populations of interest using subjective measures of racial/ethnic identification (Sakamoto, Wu, and Tzeng 2000; Snipp and Hirschman 2004; Zeng and Xie 2004; Saenz 2005; Duncan, Hotz, and Trejo 2006). In particular, this approach is typically the only feasible option for studies that examine long-term integration by distinguishing immigrant descendants in the third and higher generations (Rong and Grant 1992; Borjas 1994; Trejo 1997, 2003; Goyette and Xie 1999; Farley and Alba 2002; Grogger and Trejo 2002; Yang 2004; Smith 2006; Blau and Kahn 2007). For example, the standard definition of third- and higher-generation Mexicans Americans is U.S.-born individuals who have U.S.-born parents and who self-identify as Mexican in response to the Hispanic origin question.

A potential problem with this approach is that assimilation and intermarriage can cause ethnic attachments to fade across generations (Alba 1990; Waters 1990; Perlmann and Waters 2007; Alba and Islam 2009; Lee and Bean 2010), and therefore subjective measures of racial/ethnic identification might miss a significant portion of the later-generation descendants of immigrants. Moreover, if such “ethnic attrition” is selective on socioeconomic attainment, it can distort assessments of integration and generational progress.

Our own previous work demonstrates the salience of these issues for the specific case of Mexican Americans (Duncan and Trejo 2007, 2009, 2011). Analyzing microdata from the CPS for children living with both parents in Duncan and Trejo (2011), we compare an objective indicator of Mexican descent (based on the countries of birth of the child, his parents, and his grandparents) with the standard subjective measure of Mexican identification (based on the response to the Hispanic origin question). We find that about 30 percent of third-generation Mexican children are not identified as Mexican by the Hispanic origin question in the CPS, and this ethnic attrition is highly selective. In particular, the high school dropout rate of third-generation Mexican youth (ages 16 and 17) is 25 percent higher when the sample is limited to those youth subjectively identified as Mexican. Therefore, our previous research suggests that ethnic attrition is substantial among third-generation Mexicans and could produce significant downward bias in standard measures of attainment that rely on subjective ethnic identification rather than objective indicators of Mexican descent.

Extending our earlier work, which focused on Mexicans, in Duncan and Trejo (2017) we show that ethnic attrition is sizable and selective for the second- and third-generation populations of key Hispanic and Asian national-origin groups. It is important to note that these results indicate that ethnic attrition generates measurement biases that vary across groups in direction as well as magnitude, and that correcting for these biases is likely to raise the socioeconomic standing of the U.S.-born descendants of most Hispanic immigrants relative to their Asian counterparts. The results to date, however, shed more light on the direction rather than the ultimate magnitude of these measurement biases, and so at this point it is unknown whether correcting for selective ethnic attrition would produce a small or large improvement in the relative attainment of later-generation Hispanics. Below, we present in a bit more detail some of the key findings from Duncan and Trejo (2017), using updated calculations with additional years of data.

Some Evidence of Selective Ethnic Attrition

We use individual-level survey data from the CPS for all months from January 2003 through December 2016.1 As mentioned earlier, a key feature of CPS data is their inclusion (beginning in 1994) of the information about parental countries of birth that is currently missing from the census and ACS. As a result, the CPS is now the best large-scale, nationally representative U.S. dataset for investigating how outcomes vary by immigrant generation.

Immigrant generations are defined using information on the countries of birth of the respondent, his or her parents, and (when possible, as described below) his or her grandparents. The first generation consists of foreign-born individuals (excluding those born abroad of an American parent). The second generation includes U.S.-born individuals who have at least one foreign-born parent. The third generation denotes U.S.-born individuals with two U.S.-born parents but at least one foreign-born grandparent. These immigrant generations are defined with respect to specific Hispanic (Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic) and Asian (China, India, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines) source countries. These particular countries were chosen because they are important sources of U.S. immigration and they yield CPS samples of reasonable size for all three generations.

Samples of first- and second-generation adults ages 25 to 59 are constructed using the information collected in the CPS regarding the countries of birth of each respondent and of each respondent’s father and mother. For children living with both parents, the survey data collected from the parents reveal the countries of birth of each child’s grandparents. Using this information, third-generation samples are constructed that include U.S.-born children ages 17 and younger who live in intact families and have two U.S.-born parents (ages 18 and older) but at least one grandparent born in a relevant source country.

Tables 1 and 2 show the basic patterns that emerge when the source country samples are pooled into panethnic aggregates for Hispanics and for Asians. For first-, second-, or third-generation members of a relevant Hispanic or Asian national-origin group, Table 1 reports the percentage who subjectively identify in the expected way (with subjective Hispanic identification based on responses to the CPS Hispanic origin question, and subjective Asian identification based on responses to the CPS race question).2 Among Hispanics, these ethnic identification rates fall from 99 percent for first-generation adults to 94 percent for second-generation adults to 83 percent for third-generation children. Ethnic attrition is more prevalent and the generational gradient is steeper for Asians, with ethnic identification rates of 97 percent for the first generation, 80 percent for the second generation, and 59 percent for the third generation. More detailed tabulations show considerable variation in ethnic attrition rates across specific Hispanic and Asian national-origin groups. As a result, standard analyses that must rely on subjective racial/ethnic identification to detect the later-generation descendants of immigrants can miss large segments of the target populations.

TABLE 1. Rates of Ethnic Identification.

Source Countries
Hispanic Asian
First-generation adults 98.6%
(0.04)
[79,318]		 96.5%
(0.1)
[31,993]
Second-generation adults 93.7%
(0.2)
[24,699]		 79.7%
(0.5)
[7,656]
Third-generation children 82.9%
(0.4)
[9,603]		 58.8%
(0.9)
[3,068]
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SOURCE: 2003–2016 CPS data.

NOTE: Reported figures are the percentage of individuals who identify as members of the relevant ethnic group (Hispanic or Asian). Standard errors are shown in parentheses, and sample sizes are shown in brackets. Hispanic source countries are Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic. Asian source countries are China, India, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines. First-generation adults are individuals ages 25–59 who were born in a relevant source country (excluding those born abroad of an American parent). Second-generation adults are U.S.-born individuals ages 25–59 who have at least one parent born in a relevant source country. Third-generation children are U.S.-born individuals ages 17 and younger who live in intact families and have two U.S.-born parents but at least one grandparent born in a relevant source country.

TABLE 2. Educational Selectivity of Ethnic Identification.

Source countries
Hispanic Asian
First-generation adults
 Average education 10.02 (0.01) 15.04 (0.02)
Second-generation adults
 Average education
  Identified as ethnic group member 12.96 (0.02) 15.13 (0.03)
  Not identified as ethnic group member 13.67 (0.06) 14.45 (0.06)
  All 13.00 (0.02) 14.99 (0.03)
Third-generation children
 Average parental education:
  Child identified as ethnic group member 13.25 (0.02) 15.16 (0.05)
  Child not identified as ethnic group member 14.04 (0.05) 14.55 (0.06)
  All 13.38 (0.02) 14.91 (0.04)
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SOURCE: 2003–2016 CPS data.

NOTE: Reported figures are average completed years of education; for third-generation children, this measure represents the average of father’s and mother’s education. Standard errors are shown in parentheses. See Table 1 and the text for further information about the samples.

Table 1 demonstrates that, despite nearly perfect rates of ethnic identification for first-generation adults, Hispanics and Asians exhibit substantial amounts of ethnic attrition in the second and third generations. For ethnic attrition to distort standard measures of generational progress for immigrant groups, however, it is not enough that such attrition be sizable; the attrition must also be selective on socioeconomic attainment. To provide some evidence on this issue, Table 2 reports average completed years of schooling by ethnic identification for second-generation adults and third-generation children. For third-generation children, the education measure represents the average of father’s and mother’s years of schooling.

Table 2 succinctly illustrates an important finding: with regard to educational attainment, ethnic attrition among the U.S.-born descendants of immigrants tends to be positively selected for Hispanics and negatively selected for Asians. For example, second-generation Hispanics who do not identify as Hispanic average almost three-quarters of a year more education than their counterparts who do so identify, whereas the analogous comparison among second-generation Asians yields a deficit of two-thirds of a year for those who do not identify as Asian. The pattern is similar among third-generation children: those of Hispanic descent who are not identified as Hispanic enjoy advantaged backgrounds (i.e., fathers and mothers with more schooling, on average) compared to their peers who are identified as Hispanic, and this selectivity runs in the opposite direction for children of Asian descent. In particular, average parental education is four-fifths of a year higher for third-generation Hispanic children not identified as Hispanic compared to those who are identified as Hispanic. In contrast, average parental education is three-fifths of a year lower for third-generation Asian children not identified as Asian compared to those who are identified as Asian.

Additional analyses in Duncan and Trejo (2017) show that mixed ethnic origins are common among third-generation Hispanic and Asian children, and that ethnic attrition predominately occurs in children with mixed parental origins. Among third-generation children with the relevant ethnicity on both the paternal and maternal sides of their family, ethnic attrition rates are low (2 percent for Hispanics and 7 percent for Asians), but these rates are dramatically higher among children whose ethnicity originates from only one side of their family (35 percent for Hispanics and 55 percent for Asians).

Conclusion

The research described here highlights the potential payoff to collecting more precise information in U.S. Census Bureau surveys on the immigrant generation and national origins of respondents. To this end, a valuable first step would be to add questions in the ACS about the countries of birth of each respondent’s parents, similar to the questions currently asked in the CPS, so that second-generation status could be objectively identified for adults in ACS data. The much larger sample sizes in ACS data would permit meaningful analyses of generational progress for specific national-origin groups and by important subgroups (e.g., by age, gender, region, year, and so on) that are not currently feasible because of limited sample sizes for the relevant groups in CPS data. In addition, to permit accurate identification of adults in the third and later generations, it would be worthwhile to consider collecting at regular intervals supplemental information in large-scale surveys such as the ACS or CPS on the countries of birth of the respondent’s grandparents and earlier ancestors.3 Without additional information of this type, measurement biases arising from selective ethnic identification will continue to distort assessments of the socioeconomic attainment and integration of later-generation descendants of immigrants.

Footnotes

1.

In Duncan and Trejo (2017), the data sample stopped in December 2013.

2.

Beginning in January 2003, the CPS race question allows respondents to identify with more than one race category (in contrast, the Hispanic origin question permits only a single response). We consider individuals to identify as Asian if they respond to the CPS race question with “Asian” or “Hawaiian/Pacific Islander” (or both), even if they also give other (i.e., non-Asian) race responses. Treating multiple race responses in this way will produce conservative estimates of ethnic attrition.

3.

The 1990 Census Content Reinterview Survey (1990 CRS) collected unique information on the national origins of the respondents’ ancestors that might provide a model for future efforts along these lines (U.S. Census Bureau 1993). In particular, the 1990 CRS included a series of questions soliciting the countries of birth of the respondent, both of the respondent’s parents, and all four of the respondent’s grandparents. Additional questions asked about the birth country for “earlier generations” (i.e., great grandparents and beyond) on the father’s side and on the mother’s side, and those who failed to provide a foreign country in response to any of these questions were asked to name the birth country of their “ancestors who FIRST came to the United States.” With this information, immigrant generation and national origins can be directly and precisely assigned for each respondent based on the countries of birth of the respondent’s ancestors, even for those respondents whose families have lived in the United States for two or more generations.

Contributor Information

BRIAN DUNCAN, professor of economics at the University of Colorado Denver. His research focuses on the economics of generosity, specifically examining the conflicting motives individuals have for contributing to charitable causes. He has also written on the economic incentives of foster care and adoption, and on the intergenerational progress of the descendants of U.S. immigrants..

STEPHEN J. TREJO, professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin. His current research focuses on understanding patterns of intergenerational mobility among U.S. immigrant groups, and one strand of this work explores how selective intermarriage and ethnic identification might distort standard measures of socioeconomic attainment for the U.S.-born descendants of immigrants.

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