Assessing Immigrant Assimilation: New Empirical and Theoretical Challenges

TLDR

This review examines immigrant assimilation, argues that studying new southern and midwestern gateways is essential for theory development, and predicts a protracted replenishment period that may alter assimilation dynamics. The authors review four key assimilation benchmarks—socioeconomic status, spatial concentration, language use, and intermarriage—document the shifting geography of immigrant settlement, and argue that birth cohort and generation should serve as temporal markers for studying these changes. Current literature indicates that contemporary immigrants are largely assimilating into American society across socioeconomic status, spatial concentration, language use, and intermarriage.

Abstract

This review examines research on the assimilation of immigrant groups. We review research on four primary benchmarks of assimilation: socioeconomic status, spatial concentration, language assimilation, and intermarriage. The existing literature shows that today's immigrants are largely assimilating into American society along each of these dimensions. This review also considers directions for future research on the assimilation of immigrant groups in new southern and midwestern gateways and how sociologists measure immigrant assimilation. We document the changing geography of immigrant settlement and review the emerging body of research in this area. We argue that examining immigrant assimilation in these new immigrant gateways is crucial for the development of theories about immigrant assimilation. We also argue that we are likely to see a protracted period of immigrant replenishment that may change the nature of assimilation. Studying this change requires sociologists to use both birth cohort and generation as temporal markers of assimilation.