Intergenerational Residential Mobility among Young Adults of Mexican Origin in Greater Los Angeles

Susan K. Brown, University of California, Irvine
Shila Patel, University of California, Irvine

We examine residential mobility of the Mexican-origin population in the Los Angeles area across three immigrant generations. This paper draws on data from a new survey on intergenerational immigrant mobility in metropolitan Los Angeles, geocoded with census-tract data from 1980-2000. The survey covered more than 4,000 adults, ages 20-39, of whom 1,200 were of Mexican origin. We examine the ethnic and economic composition of neighborhoods in which these young adults of Mexican origin are living and the extent to which their neighborhood attainment varies by immigrant generation. We also examine how the neighborhoods where respondents live now differ from the neighborhoods in which they grew up. More particularly, we ask for those in the 1.5 and second generations whether their residential outcomes are affected by whether their parents came as legal or unauthorized migrants.