Mexican Families in the U.S.

Jennifer E. Glick, Arizona State University

Children of Mexican origin are the fastest growing group of children and adolescents in the United States today. Many of these children live in socioeconomic circumstances that reduce their educational and labor market opportunities as they enter adulthood. Relying on U.S. Census data and other sources, this paper describes the socioeconomic and family circumstances of the Mexican origin child population in the United States. Children face differential prospects depending on their own nativity and generation status. First generation children are more likely to live below poverty, to live in linguistically isolated households and to live in households without a high school graduate than their higher generation counterparts. However, children of different generation status also share contexts; Over half of first generation Mexican children live in the same household with a US born child. These shared contexts lead to shared trajectories potentially contributing to generational mobility ‘stagnation’ described in previous research.