Neighborhood Effects on Second Generation Immigrant Outcomes in New York City

Monica McDermott, Stanford University

Most multi-level datasets have too few second generation immigrant respondents to permit the analysis of contextual effects on individual-level outcomes. The Immigrant Second Generation in Metropolitan New York survey remedies this situation, as data on the 55 sub-boroughs of New York City can be linked to the responses of 1615 second generation immigrants and 647 native-born respondents between the ages of 18 and 32. Some notable results include the impact of living in a majority-black neighborhood on college attendance: the effect is negative for every group except West Indians, for whom the effect is positive, net of individual-level controls. In addition, native-born black men are the group most likely to report experiencing prejudice while looking for work, although growing up in a poor neighborhood increases the likelihood of experiencing prejudice for all groups.