Ethnic Attrition Over Generations Since Migration: The Role of Race and the Latino Panethnic Core. Job Market Paper, submitting in August 2024.
Ethnic attrition, i.e. when the descendants of Latin American immigrants no longer report being Hispanic or Latino on surveys, has gained attention because of its association with socioeconomic outcomes. However, the nature of ethnic attrition remains an open question. Leveraging on the longitudinal measurement of Hispanic/Latino ethnicity in the Add Health dataset, the results show that racial self-classification, perceived skin tone, language practices, and Latino social ties fully account for the higher levels of ethnic attrition among third-or-later generation Latinos. The results of fixed-effects models show that having new Latino romantic or spousal relationships decreases ethnic attrition. These findings support the existence of a Latino panethnic core and highlight the role of race in making ethnicity more consequential than symbolic.
Beating the Generation Clock? Ethnic Context and Differences in Spanish Language Use Between Second- and Later- Generation Latinos. First author, co-authoring with Ted Mouw
Ted Mouw and I reassess the question of Spanish language loss or retention over generations since migration. Using restricted-access data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation and the American Community Survey, we find considerable geographic heterogeneity in the “generation clock” effect on Spanish language use among U.S.-born Latinos. We also find that the use of Spanish by U.S-born Latinos and ethnic retention, both measured at the local level, moderate the “generation clock” effect. We introduce a novel measure of ethnic retention based on the name patterns of residents in the respondents’ neighborhoods and communities. The analyses use random-coefficient multilevel models.