Overview

This research project examines family and household relationships of Mexican origin Americans between 1880 and 1990. The research contrasts Mexican Americans to a variety of other immigrant origin groups (the Irish, Italians, Poles, Chinese, and Puerto Ricans) and to blacks and native whites. It assesses the effects of ethnicity on family structure, and especially on the household circumstances of children. Current research indicates that Hispanic families today have rising rates of unmarried female-headed families with children, rather than the idealized nuclear family. Our data show that for the period before 1970, when Mexican origin persons dominated the Hispanic population, there was no such trend. Other research shows high rates of in-group or endogamous marriage for Mexican origin persons, perhaps higher than that in other ethnic groups. By looking at the family experiences of children and their mothers, at the development of female-headed households, and at intermarriage, we address fundamental theoretical issues in the assimilation patterns of immigrant groups. We also measure whether recent changes may have important long-term and theoretical implications for families in America. See detailed project description.

This research has been generously supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, especially through the project "Assimilation Trajectories in Mexican American Families" (HD37824-02--Gratton). Additional funding was provided through grants F33 HD08147-0 (Gratton) and 5 R01 HD32325 (Gutmann).

Ethnic Identification Files for the IPUMS datasets, 1850-1990

In order to estimate the size and composition of Hispanic and other ethnic groups, the project team wrote ethnic identification code for the microdata samples of the Integrated Public Use Microdata Samples (IPUMS) of the United States Censuses. This approach, first used to identify Hispanics and then divide that population into its subgroups, was extended to other ethnic categories in the various analyses of the project. A full description of this method, including code for attaching parental and household information to children and for defining ethnicity and household and family types, can be found in Data & Documentation.