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Past studies of the empirical relationship between immigration and crime during the first major wave of immigration have focused on violent crime in cities and have relied on data with serious limitations regarding nativity information. We analyze administrative data from Pennsylvania prisons, with high-quality information on nativity and demographic characteristics. The latter allow us to construct incarceration rates for detailed population groups using U.S. Census data. The raw gap in incarceration rates for the foreign and native born is large, in accord with the extremely high concern at the time about immigrant criminality. But adjusting for age and gender greatly narrows that observed gap. Particularly striking are the urban/rural differences. Immigrants were concentrated in large cities where reported crime rates were higher. However, within rural counties, the foreign born had much higher incarceration rates than the native born. The interaction of nativity with urban residence explains much of the observed aggregate differentials in incarceration rates. Finally, we find that the foreign born, especially the Irish, consistently have higher incarceration rates for violent crimes, but from 1850 to 1860 the natives largely closed the gap with the foreign born for property offenses.

Do the living arrangements of immigrant elderly differ significantly from those for non‐immigrant elderly? If so, are differences between immigrants and non‐immigrants due to population composition or immigration‐based cultural preferences? To answer these questions this research examines the living arrangements of Non‐Hispanic White, Hispanic, and Asian elderly using data from the 1990 Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS). The standardization and multinomial logistic regression results indicate that within each of the racial/ethnic groups immigrants, particularly those aged sixty or older upon arrival, are more likely to live in extended family arrangements and less likely to live independently than elderly non‐immigrants. Furthermore, these differences between immigrants and non‐immigrants are not due to differences in population composition, economic resources, functional limitations, or acculturation. The results suggest that immigration policies are influencing these observed living arrangement differences. The impact of increasing diversity among the older population and potential changes in government policy on the distribution of future elderly living arrangements is discussed.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe the ascent of Metropolitan Washington from an area with low levels of immigration to a major U.S. destination.

Methodology/approach – Drawing on a growing body of research on immigration to Washington, DC, and data from the American Community Survey (ACS), trends are examined in detail to illustrate how this immigrant gateway fits into the national historical picture.

Findings – The findings analyze the historical comparative settlement patterns of immigrants to the United States to demonstrate how Washington has emerged as the seventh largest immigrant gateway. The paper further analyzes metropolitan-level data on country of origin and residence to show the diversity of the immigrant population and their disbursal to suburban areas from the central core over the past four decades.

Social implications – The paper also highlights some conflict in new suburban destinations within metropolitan Washington, which experienced fast and recent growth. But immigrant incorporation has worked well in the past and Washington can continue to work to be a model of immigrant integration as local organizations, governments, and communities continue to confront the challenges of immigration in productive and sustainable ways.

Originality/value of paper – This paper combines the historical settlement of immigrants across the United States with the in-depth examination of one of the newest and largest immigrant gateways, the U.S. capitol region, Washington, DC.

We study the correlates of immigrant location and migration choices to address the following questions: What location-specific, economic, and demographic factors are associated with these choices? Does the influence of these factors differ by immigrant characteristics? What are the factors associated with the observed increase in immigrant geographic dispersion during the 1990s? Our analysis suggests that: (1) There is significant heterogeneity in the correlates of immigrant location and migration choices; associations vary by immigrant birthplace, age, gender, education, and duration of residence in the United States. (2) Economic factors are, for the most part, weakly associated with immigrant location decisions. (3) Immigrants appear to be more attracted to states with large (growing) populations; less attracted to states with a high proportion of other foreign-born persons; more attracted to states with high unionization, and less attracted to states with high crime. (4) The association between location-specific characteristics and immigrant location choices changed between 1990 and 2000 for some immigrant groups and this explains most of the increase in geographic dispersion during the 1990s. In contrast, changes in location attributes and changes in immigrant composition explain relatively little of the increase in dispersion.

Canada’s visible minority population is increasing rapidly, yet despite the demographic significance of this population, there is a surprising dearth of nationally representative health data on visible minorities. This is a major challenge to undertaking research on the health of this group, particularly in the context of investigating racial/ethnic disparities and health disadvantages that are rooted in racialization. The purpose of this paper is to summarize: mortality and morbidity patterns for visible minorities; determinants of visible minority health; health status and determinants of the health of visible minority older adults (VMOA); and promising data sources that may be used to examine visible minority health in future research.

A scoping review of 99 studies or publications published between 1978 and 2014 (abstracts of 72 and full articles of 27) was conducted to summarize data and research findings on visible minority health to answer four specific questions: what is known about the morbidity and mortality patterns of visible minorities relative to white Canadians? What is known about the determinants of visible minority health? What is known about the health status of VMOA, a growing segment of Canada’s aging population, and how does this compare with white older adults? And finally, what data sources have been used to study visible minority health?

There is indeed a major gap in health data and research on visible minorities in Canada. Further, many studies failed to distinguish between immigrants and Canadian-born visible minorities, thus conflating effects of racial status with those of immigrant status on health. The VMOA population is even more invisible in health data and research. The most promising data set appears to be the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS).

This paper makes an important contribution by providing a comprehensive overview of the nature, extent, and range of data and research available on the health of visible minorities in Canada. The authors make two key recommendations: first, over-sampling visible minorities in standard health surveys such as the CCHS, or conducting targeted health surveys of visible minorities. Surveys should collect information on key socio-demographic characteristics such as nativity, ethnic origin, socioeconomic status, and age-at-arrival for immigrants. Second, researchers should consider an intersectionality approach that takes into account the multiple factors that may affect a visible minority person’s health, including the role of discrimination based on racial status, immigrant characteristics for foreign-born visible minorities, age and the role of ageism for older adults, socioeconomic status, gender (for visible minority women), and geographic place or residence in their analyses.

The chapter examines the relationship between social inclusion patterns and economic development in selected EU countries. This research has two objectives: (i) to reveal whether there are similarities among the EU countries in nation’s social inclusiveness of three demographic groups, namely the entire population, immigrants, and Roma communities; and (ii) to analyze the influence of social inclusion indicators on sustainable economic development and prosperity for the EU countries by accounting for the ethnicity impact. The chapter presents the results of a cluster analysis approach, which indicates best-positioned countries and emphasizes vulnerabilities in terms of social inclusiveness both in a broad demographic sense (the entire population) and a narrow sense (immigrants and respective Roma population). The chapter then employs a panel data regression approach to investigate which social inclusion indicators might have the potentially influencing role on economic development. Seven alternative proxies for sustainable economic development and prosperity measures were used. The social inclusion indicators, as explanatory variables, are represented by the education-related indicators and labor market-related indicators. The robustness and stability of the estimates are validated by including several interaction terms in the baseline regression model to account for the occurrence of the financial crisis. Overall, improving both population as well as immigrants’ inclusion is shown to have an important impact on sustainable economic development in the EU countries.

I construct a set of dynamic macroeconomic models to analyze the effect of unskilled immigration on wage inequality. The immigrants or their descendants do not remain unskilled – over time they may approach or exceed the general level of educational attainment. In the baseline model, the economy's capital supply is determined endogenously by the savings behavior of infinite-lived dynasties, and I also consider models in which the supply of capital is perfectly elastic, or exogenously determined. I derive a simple formula that determines the time discounted value of the skill premium enjoyed by college-educated workers following a change in the rate of immigration for unskilled workers, or a change in the degree or rate at which unskilled immigrants become skilled. I compare the calculations of the skill premiums to data from the US Current Population Survey to determine the long-run effect of different immigrant groups on wage inequality in the United States.

Nowadays children from immigrant families are the fastest growing group of youth in the United States. Despite the fact that emerging research has highlighted the significance of strong partnerships between families and high-quality early childcare/education programs, many immigrant families face numerous barriers in accessing high-quality childcare/early education as well as establishing strong partnerships with centers. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the emerging challenges that immigrant families face in navigating the U.S. early childhood education system. This chapter first briefly reviews the literature on the role of family involvement in early childhood education within the general U.S. population. This is followed by a review of the unique funds of knowledge that immigrant parents engage in while interacting with their children at home. Then this chapter explores the barriers of immigrant families in developing strong partnerships with early childcare/education programs such as, communication, limited parental English proficiency, lack of public funding, acculturation, education, and cultural perceptions of involvement. Furthermore, this is followed by a focus on two distinct rising immigrant populations within the United States, Hispanic (specifically non-refugee) and refugee populations, and their unique sets of obstacles. Lastly, recommendations are provided for future practitioners and policymakers to support the establishment of stronger immigrant family and professional partnerships within early education and childcare settings.

Digital inequality studies claim that social inequalities tend to be replicated online. However, studies have not attempted so far to deeper understand such stratification in immigrant societies regarding the e-government use. This study aims to understand the role of immigration status, gender and country of origin in the e-government use, thereby reflecting what the literature on the sociology of migration refers to as immigrants’ “double” and “triple” disadvantage.

Israel was chosen as a case study because it is an immigration society in which immigrants’ socioeconomic status is usually inferior to that of the native population. The data were attained from the 2017 Israel Social Survey. The population of the study included internet users from the Jewish sector (N = 4,222). Logistic regression was used as the multivariate technique.

The results indicated that immigrant women are disadvantaged in terms of e-government use regardless of their year of immigration. Yet, when the data are segmented by country of origin, only female immigrants from the former Soviet Union show evidence of a triple disadvantage.

The conclusion is that immigrants’ disadvantages in the offline sphere also exist in the online sphere.

Particular categories, which use e-government to a small extent, were identified, serving a call for action for the public officials. They should develop plans to make e-government more accessible to individuals belonging to these categories.

This study incorporates digital and immigrant sociology for the explanation of immigrants’ (online) social inclusion.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the degree of ethnic residential segregation and diversification in Dutch neighbourhoods.

Using data on neighbourhood level, the authors calculate segregation and diversification indices, and illustrate the distribution of main origin groups by cumulative distribution functions. A preliminary analysis is conducted to quantify the relationship between neighbourhood ethnic composition and economic outcomes (income and welfare dependency).

No evidence is found on the existence of mono‐ethnic neighbourhoods in The Netherlands. The higher concentration of non‐Western immigrants in the large cities occurs in neighbourhoods with a high degree of diversity from several origins. An apparent strong correlation between the concentration of non‐Western immigrants and the prevalence of social benefits is likely due to the composition effect. The findings counter the public opinion that ghetto‐like neighbourhoods are dominant. They suggest that neighbourhood housing composition plays possibly an important role to attract immigrants with a weak socio‐economic position, who are often from a variety of non‐Western countries, rather than from a single origin.

Social policies aimed at improving neighbourhood quality affect non‐Western immigrants from different source countries simultaneously, as they tend to live together in immigrant neighbourhoods. But integration policies targeted at neighbourhoods are insufficient, as many immigrants live in areas with low immigrant density: policies targeted at individuals (and families) remain indispensable.

This is the first paper to document segregation and diversity in The Netherlands, using unique neighbourhood level data. Applying cumulative distribution functions to these issues is also novel.