Second Generation Internal Migration: Dispersion from States of Immigration?

Mark Ellis, University of Washington
Jamie Goodwin-White, University of Washington

Much analysis of immigration has focused on the residential mobility and resulting concentration or dispersion of the foreign-born population,. Little is known, however, about where the second generation reside, their mobility or its determinants, and to what extent they resemble the foreign-born or native-born (at least third generation) in these regards. As the children of the post-1965 immigrants reach adulthood, such questions are critical in examination of ethnic concentrations and immigrant integration. We examine both the second generation, identifiable in the Current Population Survey data, and the 1.5 generation (children of foreign-born parents who arrived in the U.S. before reaching ten years of age) from the 5% Public Use Microdata Files of the U.S. Census, and determine both their local and inter-state mobility. Further, we model inter-state mobility as an outcome of socioeconomic covariates, race/ethnicity, and a continuous measure of origin state concentration of the foreign-born.