A Latent Class Analysis of the Economic Experience Among Children of Immigrants and Their Socioemotional Well-Being

Background: Despite the evidence documenting the importance of economic experience for children’s socioemotional well-being, little has focused on the economic lives among children of immigrants—those who have at least one foreign-born parent. What is known is that, children of immigrants are more likely to live below the federal poverty line than their peers of native-born parents. The influence of economic experience on a child’s development depends on multiple dimensions such as the severity of poverty, the duration of deprivation, and the fluctuation of income. Moreover, the economic diversity within immigrant families was accompanied by heterogeneity in the country of origin. This study takes a closer look at childhood economic experience by incorporating three dimensions of deprivation (depth, duration, and volatility), and examines how multidimensional economic experiences shape the socioemotional well-being of children of immigrants by paying particular attention to country of origin.

Methods: This study used the ECLS-K1998-99, a dataset following a nationally representative cohort of children at Kindergarten, First-, Third-, Fifth-, and Eighth-grade from 1998 to 2007. The analyzed sample (N≈18,930) included children of native-borns (non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, Asian and others) and children of immigrants originated from East Asia (e.g., China), Southeast Asia (e.g., Vietnam), Caribbean countries, Mexico, and Non-Mexico Latin America. Economic experience was examined regarding depth (not-poor, near-poor, poor, and extreme poor), duration (times of poverty exposure), and volatility (direction of income changes between waves). Latent class analysis (LCA) was conducted to identify underlying groups of children with similar economic experiences based on the three dimensions from kindergarten to fifth-grade. Ordinary least squares regressions were then employed to estimate the association between economic experience, country of origin, and socioemotional outcomes including locus of control, self-concept, and internalizing symptoms at eighth-grade. A rich set of sociodemographic characteristics was considered in the analysis.

Results: The LCA identifies a four-class solution: a never-poor class (46%) with family income above 200% of the federal poverty line over time, a mostly near-poor class (26%) that was above 100% but below 200% of the poverty line, a class that was cycling below and above the poverty line over time due to volatile income (15%), and a poor/extremely-poor class (13%) that was either below 100% or 50% of the poverty line with unstable income.

The regression results suggest that, children of immigrants, in general, perceived themselves to have a worse locus of control, self-concept, and internalizing symptoms than their peers of native-borns. After considering the four economic patterns, however, most children of immigrants fared as well as their White children of native-borns under similar economic conditions. Among immigrants with similar economic circumstances, East and Southeast Asian children reported more unfavorable locus of control and self-concept than the other immigrant groups.

Conclusions and Implications: These findings underscore the importance of economic, social, and cultural factors in accounting for the socioemotional well-being of children of immigrants. Policies and programs need to be tailored to various economic lives and different cultural groups to promote the socioemotional development of children in immigrant families.