Older People in America’s Immigrant Families

Because older members of immigrant families are assumed to be less economically active and less likely to learn English and assimilate to American ways, researchers have overlooked and understudied this demographic group. But older relatives make significant contributions to immigrant families. Economically, they provide valuable childcare for young children, allowing younger adults to enter the workforce. Socially, they help to transmit ethnic identity to children born in America and maintain transnational ties with the family’s native land.

With support from the Foundation, Judith Treas will write a book that examines the structure of intergenerational relations and obligations in a multi-ethnic sample of immigrant families. She will use quantitative data from the U.S. Census and the Department of Homeland Security to document the incidence and the shape of multigenerational immigrant family arrangements. She will then test the hypotheses that grandparents’ presence will increase the likelihood that grandchildren will be bilingual, that women with young children will participate in the labor force, and that the extended family will live in ethnic enclaves, relative to immigrant families without elderly relatives. She will combine this information with interview data on foreign-born adults and college students, paying particular attention to the role that gender and the personal resources and needs of these older immigrants play in exchanges across generations.