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Migration

In many countries, immigrant children and the children of immigrants now account for a significant fraction of the entire population of young people. As a result, the experience of these children has become a central topic of investigation among sociologists and practitioners of related disciplines, including anthropology, psychology, education, history, and child development. Scholars involved in these studies of the new second generation—the descendants of immigrants who arrived in the United States after 1965—could integrate life-span perspectives to nuance how changing national settings alters human lives. Work that integrates expertise across fields generates a more refined understanding of the manner in which immigration issues related to social class, generational status, cultural differences, gender, and differentiated familial and societal contexts have long-term effects across the life span. Conversely, particular characteristics of an individual’s life stage at the time of migration have important ramifications for the individual adaptation in the new country. This entry explores how life-span development is transformed when individuals, families, and groups move from one national location to another.

Costs and Benefits of Migration

The effect of migration on human lives can be understood as the consequence of a combination of opportunities and costs that shape life-span development. Benefits are created by taking advantage of new opportunities; costs are imposed by moving and the need to relearn social knowledge as well as the absence of expected options that become unavailable in the new context. In many cases, the relation between the opportunities and costs associated with migration is complex. Both governmental and nongovernmental institutions facilitate the integration of immigrants through access to citizenship and associated rights. Similarly, the presence of coethnic communities and the response of the native-born population toward immigrants form the sociopolitic context of reception and thus affect immigrants’ overall adaptation. Sociologists Alejandro Portes and Ruben Rumbaut refer to three contexts as crucial for determining the social and economic fate of migrant groups in the United States: the receiving government’s immigration policies, the host society’s labor market conditions (implicitly, the stereotypes through which locals view immigrants as workers as well as the host society’s need for labor), and the nature of the migrants’ coethnic community. Each can have a neutral, positive, or negative impact on the immigrant population and its long-term prospects, both materially and psychologically, through the powerful symbols and actuality of recognition, prospects for advancement, belonging, and safety.

In this context, voluntary immigrants who are younger, have more skills and resources, and enter positive contexts of reception tend to enjoy the greatest advancement and encounter the fewest disadvantages. In contrast, refugees, forced migrants, and other movers, such as the elderly, as well as those with fewer skills and resources and those who enter hostile environments, often encounter difficulties including status loss, downward mobility, discrimination, an inability to fulfill basic needs, and difficulties in communicating with members of the host society. Thus, ready generalizations about immigrant experiences and their impact on life-span development are hard to come by.

Sociocultural Factors in Migration

In the view of most sociologists, social class (defined in terms of income, wealth, education, and status) is among the most important determinants of life chances. Today’s immigrants’ class distribution follows an hourglass configuration, with a fraction being more educated than the U.S. population as a whole and another group being less educated. A large fraction of working-class migrants resides in segregated neighborhoods that affect them across the life span, beginning with poor schools, then continuing with limited employment opportunities and low incomes, as well as separation from the native-born middle class. Many are active in the informal economy to make ends meet. This employment status denies them benefits and subjects them to exploitation. In contrast, highly educated, professional, and entrepreneurial immigrants often have access to the skills, resources, and legal status that allow them to join the native-born middle to upper class soon after arrival.

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