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Immigration is increasing around the world. Academic work suggests that increasing immigration reduces social cohesion and subjective well-being, but these studies mainly focused on white majority populations. Using the 2002 to 2014... more
Immigration is increasing around the world. Academic work suggests that increasing immigration reduces social cohesion and subjective well-being, but these studies mainly focused on white majority populations. Using the 2002 to 2014 European Social Survey, we analyze data from 5,149 ethnic minority respondents living in twenty-four European countries. We examine the association between immigration and respondents’ well-being, mediated by two critical cognitive mechanisms: perceived discrimination and generalized trust. We find that in the short term, immigration is associated with greater perceived discrimination, which in turn is associated with lower trust and well-being. Over the longer term, though, immigration is associated with lower perceived discrimination from ethnic minorities, yielding greater generalized trust and perceived well-being.
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In this study we draw on data from a quasi-experimental study to test whether moving into a subsidized housing development in an affluent suburb yields educational benefits to the children of residents, compared to the educations they... more
In this study we draw on data from a quasi-experimental study to test whether moving into a subsidized housing development in an affluent suburb yields educational benefits to the children of residents, compared to the educations they would have received had they not moved into the development. Results suggest that resident children experienced a significant improvement in school quality compared with a comparison group of students whose parents also had applied for residence. Parents who were residents of the development also displayed higher levels of school involvement compared with the comparison group of nonresident parents, and their children were exposed to significantly lower levels of school disorder and violence within school and spent more time reading outside of school. Living in the development did not influence GPA directly, but it did indirectly increase GPA by increasing the time residents spent reading outside of school.
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The world appears to be moving into a new era of international migration during which gaps between policies needed to manage migratory flows and those enacted in practice will widen. Whereas immigrants in the late 20th century were... more
The world appears to be moving into a new era of international migration during which gaps between policies needed to manage migratory flows and those enacted in practice will widen. Whereas immigrants in the late 20th century were motivated by a desire to improve their wellbeing by accessing opportunities in richer countries, in the early 21st century they are increasingly motivated by a desire to escape threats at places of origin, yielding very different patterns of migration and selectivity. Using the United States as an example, this paper reviews how mismatches between the underlying realities of international migration and the policies adopted to manage them, in both eras have produced and continue to produce dysfunctional outcomes. Although deleterious policy outcomes might be avoided in the future by combining a well-grounded conceptual understanding of the forces producing immigration with a clear statement of the goals to be achieved through specific policy interventions,...
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Significance Changes in social diversity constitute a key factor shaping today’s world, yet scholarly work about the consequences of diversity has been marked by a critical lack of consensus. To address this concern, we propose a... more
Significance Changes in social diversity constitute a key factor shaping today’s world, yet scholarly work about the consequences of diversity has been marked by a critical lack of consensus. To address this concern, we propose a multidisciplinary approach where psychological, sociological, and evolutionary perspectives are integrated to provide an account of how individuals adapt to changes in social diversity. With an analysis of 22 y of worldwide data, our results suggest that humans are initially inclined to react negatively to threats to homogeneity, but that these negative effects are compensated in the long term by the beneficial effects of intergroup contact. Our findings advance knowledge and inform political debate about one of the defining challenges of modern societies.
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Within the scientific community, much attention has focused on improving communications between scientists, policy makers, and the public. To date, efforts have centered on improving the content, accessibility, and delivery of scientific... more
Within the scientific community, much attention has focused on improving communications between scientists, policy makers, and the public. To date, efforts have centered on improving the content, accessibility, and delivery of scientific communications. Here we argue that in the current political and media environment faulty communication is no longer the core of the problem. Distrust in the scientific enterprise and misperceptions of scientific knowledge increasingly stem less from problems of communication and more from the widespread dissemination of misleading and biased information. We describe the profound structural shifts in the media environment that have occurred in recent decades and their connection to public policy decisions and technological changes. We explain how these shifts have enabled unscrupulous actors with ulterior motives increasingly to circulate fake news, misinformation, and disinformation with the help of trolls, bots, and respondent-driven algorithms. We...
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In this paper we adjudicate between competing claims of persisting segregation and rapid integration by analyzing trends in residential dissimilarity and spatial isolation for African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians living in 287... more
In this paper we adjudicate between competing claims of persisting segregation and rapid integration by analyzing trends in residential dissimilarity and spatial isolation for African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians living in 287 consistently defined metropolitan areas from 1970 to 2010. On average, Black segregation and isolation have fallen steadily but still remain very high in many areas, particularly those areas historically characterized by hypersegregation. In contrast, Hispanic segregation has increased slightly but Hispanic isolation has risen substantially owing to rapid population growth. Asian segregation has changed little and remains moderate, and although Asian isolation has increased it remains at low levels compared with other groups. Whites remain quite isolated from all three minority groups in metropolitan America, despite rising diversity and some shifts toward integration from the minority viewpoint.Multivariate analyses reveal that minority segregation and sp...
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Page 1. The Elusive Quest for the Perfect Index of Concentration: Reply to Egan, Anderton, and Weber* DOUGLAS S. MASSEY, University of Pennsylvania NANCY A. DENTON, State University of New York at Albany Abstract ...
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Using data from Mexico's Matrícula Consular program, we analyze the geographic organization of undocumented Mexican migration to the United States. We show that emigration has moved beyond its historical origins in west-central Mexico... more
Using data from Mexico's Matrícula Consular program, we analyze the geographic organization of undocumented Mexican migration to the United States. We show that emigration has moved beyond its historical origins in west-central Mexico into the central region and, to a lesser extent, the southeast and border regions. In the United States, traditional gateways continue to dominate, but a variety of new destinations have emerged. California, in particular, has lost its overwhelming dominance. Although the geographic structure of Mexico-U.S. migration is relatively stable, it has nonetheless continued to evolve and change over time.
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Of the three main contributors to population growth— fertility, mortality, and net migration—the latter is by far the most difficult to capture statistically. This article discusses the main sources of federal statistical data on... more
Of the three main contributors to population growth— fertility, mortality, and net migration—the latter is by far the most difficult to capture statistically. This article discusses the main sources of federal statistical data on immigration, each with its own characteristic set of strengths, weaknesses, possibilities, and limitations in the context of the interested social scientist. Among the key limitations, the article argues, are the elimination of parental birthplace from the census and the lack of complete data concerning the legal statuses of the U.S. population. This article concludes with suggestions on remedying such deficiencies, at relatively low marginal cost, such as the inclusion of questions on parental birthplace, instituting a regular survey of randomly selected legal immigrants, and the use of the “two-card method” in statistical data.
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The rise in subprime lending and the ensuing wave of foreclosures was partly a result of market forces that have been well-identified in the literature, but it was also a highly racialized process. We argue that residential segregation... more
The rise in subprime lending and the ensuing wave of foreclosures was partly a result of market forces that have been well-identified in the literature, but it was also a highly racialized process. We argue that residential segregation created a unique niche of minority clients who were differentially marketed risky subprime loans that were in great demand for use in mortgage-backed securities that could be sold on secondary markets. We test this argument by regressing foreclosure actions in the top 100 U.S. metropolitan areas on measures of black, Hispanic, and Asian segregation while controlling for a variety of housing market conditions, including average creditworthiness, the extent of coverage under the Community Reinvestment Act, the degree of zoning regulation, and the overall rate of subprime lending. We find that black residential dissimilarity and spatial isolation are powerful predictors of foreclosures across U.S. metropolitan areas. To isolate subprime lending as the ca...
Research Interests: Sociology, Economics, Race and Racism, Discrimination, Medicine, and 13 moreLatinos, Mortgage Foreclosure, House Prices, Housing Market, African Americans, Residential segregation, Foreclosure, Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities, Causal Effect, Two-stage Least Squares (2SLS), Metropolitan Area, Community Reinvestment Act, and Secondary Market
Using data from the Mexican Migration Project and the Latin American Migration Project, we find that undocumented migration from Mexico reflects U.S. labor demand and access to migrant networks and is little affected by border... more
Using data from the Mexican Migration Project and the Latin American Migration Project, we find that undocumented migration from Mexico reflects U.S. labor demand and access to migrant networks and is little affected by border enforcement, which instead sharply reduces the odds of return movement. Undocumented migration from Central America follows primarily from political violence associated with the U.S. intervention of the 1980s, and return migration has always been unlikely. Mass undocumented migration from Mexico appears to have ended because of demographic changes there, but undocumented migration from Central America can be expected to grow slowly through processes of family reunification.
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Linking municipal-level homicide rates from 1990 through 2018 with data from the Mexican Migration Project, we estimate a series of multinomial discrete-time event history models to assess the effect that exposure to lethal violence has... more
Linking municipal-level homicide rates from 1990 through 2018 with data from the Mexican Migration Project, we estimate a series of multinomial discrete-time event history models to assess the effect that exposure to lethal violence has on the likelihood of migration within Mexico and to the U.S. without documents. Statistical estimates indicate that the homicide rate negatively predicts the probability of taking a first undocumented trip to the U.S. but positively predicts the likelihood of taking a first trip within Mexico. Among those undocumented migrants, who have already taken a first U.S. trip, lethal violence also negatively predicts the likelihood of taking a second undocumented trip. Among returned internal migrants whose first trip was to a Mexican destination, the odds of taking a first undocumented trip were also negatively predicted by the municipal homicide rate. Violence in Mexico is not a driver of undocumented migration to the U.S.
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Page 1. AMERICAN APARTHEID Segregation and the Making of the Underclass DOUGLAS S. MASSEY & NANCY A. DENTON Page 2. Page 3. AMERICAN APARTHEID Segregation and the Making of the Underclass OUGLAS S. MASSEY &... more
Page 1. AMERICAN APARTHEID Segregation and the Making of the Underclass DOUGLAS S. MASSEY & NANCY A. DENTON Page 2. Page 3. AMERICAN APARTHEID Segregation and the Making of the Underclass OUGLAS S. MASSEY & NANCY A. DENTON Page 4. Page 5 ...
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This article underscores the importance of adding a question on parental birthplace to the American Community Survey (ACS). This question was removed from the long form of the U.S. Census after 1970 and replaced by a question on ancestry.... more
This article underscores the importance of adding a question on parental birthplace to the American Community Survey (ACS). This question was removed from the long form of the U.S. Census after 1970 and replaced by a question on ancestry. While the former provides accurate information about a demographic fact that is critical to the identification of the children of immigrants, the latter refers to a subjective social construction that has limited utility for purposes of program administration, apportionment, or governance. At the time that the parental birthplace question was eliminated, the percentage of ACS respondents who were foreign-born had reached an all-time low, and the second generation was aging and shrinking, so the loss to the nation’s statistical system was not immediately apparent. With the revival of immigration in the final quarter of the twentieth century, the inability to identify and study the second generation has become glaringly apparent. Immigrants and their...
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In the decade leading up to the U.S. housing crisis, black and Latino borrowers disproportionately received high-cost, high-risk mortgages-a lending disparity well documented by prior quantitative studies. We analyze qualitative data from... more
In the decade leading up to the U.S. housing crisis, black and Latino borrowers disproportionately received high-cost, high-risk mortgages-a lending disparity well documented by prior quantitative studies. We analyze qualitative data from actors in the lending industry to identify the social structure though which this mortgage discrimination took place. Our data consist of 220 depositions, declarations, and related exhibits submitted by borrowers, loan originators, investment banks, and others in fair lending cases. Our analyses reveal specific mechanisms through which loan originators identified and gained the trust of black and Latino borrowers in order to place them into higher-cost, higher-risk loans than similarly situated white borrowers. Loan originators sought out lists of individuals already borrowing money to buy consumer goods in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods to find potential borrowers, and exploited intermediaries within local social networks, such as co...
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At the end of the 1950s, the United States permitted the entry of a half million Mexican migrants per year, of which 450.000 entered with temporary work visa and 50.000 as permanent residents. By the mid-1970s, however, changes in U.S.... more
At the end of the 1950s, the United States permitted the entry of a half million Mexican migrants per year, of which 450.000 entered with temporary work visa and 50.000 as permanent residents. By the mid-1970s, however, changes in U.S. migration policy undertaken in the name of civil rights had eliminated temporary work visas and limited legal resident visas to 20.000 per year. With the opportunities for legal entry curtailed, migratory flows simply re-established themselves under undocumented auspices, giving rise to a chain reaction that culminated in a new war on immigrants and the unprecedented growth of the unauthorized population of the United States. The article shows that the rise of undocumented migration and the growth of America's undocumented population are a product of poorly conceived immigration and border policies.
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From the mid-1950s through the mid1980s, migration between Mexico and the United States constituted a stable system whose contours were shaped by social and economic conditions well-theorized by prevailing models of migration. It evolved... more
From the mid-1950s through the mid1980s, migration between Mexico and the United States constituted a stable system whose contours were shaped by social and economic conditions well-theorized by prevailing models of migration. It evolved as a mostly circular movement of male workers going to a handful of U.S. states in response to changing conditions of labor supply and demand north and south of the border, relative wages prevailing in each nation, market failures and structural economic changes in Mexico, and the expansion of migrant networks following processes specified by neoclassical economics, segmented labor market theory, the new economics of labor migration, social capital theory, world systems theory, and theoretical models of state behavior. After 1986, however, the migration system was radically transformed, with the net rate of migration increasing sharply as movement shifted from a circular flow of male workers going a limited set of destinations to a nationwide popula...
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Beginning in 1987, Peru imposed a regime of structural adjustment to transform its economy along neoliberal lines. This analysis suggests that a shift resulted in the odds of international migration and the motivations for leaving among... more
Beginning in 1987, Peru imposed a regime of structural adjustment to transform its economy along neoliberal lines. This analysis suggests that a shift resulted in the odds of international migration and the motivations for leaving among inhabitants of Peru’s largest labor market. Before 1987, under the regime of import substitution industrialization, jobs at wages capable of sustaining a basic standard of living were widely available; those few who left the country self-selected for higher human capital and moved abroad to improve their earnings. Under neoliberalism, however, both employment and wages fell to levels that made it difficult for families to sustain themselves. In response, households—with the assistance of friends and relatives with foreign experience—diversified their labor portfolios away from the local job market structural adjustment zones. The number of migrants then rose, the diversity of foreign destinations increased, and migration became less selective with respect to human capital.
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We argue that the public's generally unfavorable perception of sociology is due in large part to the way' in which sociology is presented in introductory courses, that the course as now taught does not attract the right people... more
We argue that the public's generally unfavorable perception of sociology is due in large part to the way' in which sociology is presented in introductory courses, that the course as now taught does not attract the right people into the field, that it illprepares those who do go on ...
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Recent studies have used statistical methods to show that minorities were more likely than equally qualified whites to receive high–cost, high–risk loans during the U.S. housing boom, evidence taken to suggest widespread discrimination in... more
Recent studies have used statistical methods to show that minorities were more likely than equally qualified whites to receive high–cost, high–risk loans during the U.S. housing boom, evidence taken to suggest widespread discrimination in the mortgage lending industry. The evidence, however, was indirect, being inferred from racial differentials that persisted after controlling for other factors known to affect the terms of lending. Here we assemble a qualitative database to generate direct evidence of discrimination. Using a sample of 220 statements randomly selected from documents assembled in the course of recent fair lending lawsuits, we code texts for evidence of individual discrimination, structural discrimination, and potential discrimination in mortgage lending practices. We find that 76 percent of the texts indicated the existence of structural discrimination, with only 11 percent suggesting individual discrimination alone. We then present a sample of texts that were coded ...
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ABSTRACT