Skip to main content
Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration

The Generational Progress of Mexican Americans

Awarded External Scholars
Jeffrey Grogger
University of Chicago
Brian Duncan
University of Colorado, Denver
Ana Sofía de León
Diego Portales University (Chile)
Stephen Trejo
University of Texas, Austin
Project Date:
Award Amount:
$131,739
Summary

Jeffery Grogger and colleagues propose to analyze previously untapped information from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) to estimate both intergenerational progress between second- and third-generation Mexican Americans and the extent of selective ethnic attrition, or when people stop identifying as Mexican.

The NLSY provides longitudinal information for a nationally-representative sample of youth living in the U.S. and between 12 and 16 years old when the survey began, in 1997. It also provides information on the countries of birth of the respondent, the respondent’s biological parents, and the respondent parents’ biological grandparents. Importantly, for the investigators’ purposes, there are two sub-samples: a cross-sectional sample of all U.S. youth in the sampling universe at the time the survey began and a supplemental sample designed to over-sample non-Hispanic black and Hispanic youth. The investigators will use this data to investigate the dynamics of intergenerational transmission of human capital and socioeconomic attainment within Mexican-American families.

Academic Discipline: