Mexican Migration to the United States and Extended Family Living Arrangements

Jennifer Van Hook, Bowling Green State University
Jennifer E. Glick, Arizona State University

Using 2000 census data from Mexico and the United States, we compare the life course patterns of extended family living among Mexican origin immigrants and non-immigrants on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Additionally, we use the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to examine the stability of extended family living arrangements among Mexican-origin immigrants and natives in the United States. Compared with non-immigrants in the United States and Mexico, recent immigrants are more likely to reside in an extended family household, and among those co-residing, recent immigrants are more likely to live with kin from a similar point in the life course. Additionally, these households experience high levels of turnover in their composition. Overall, recently-arrived immigrants in the U.S. display unique lifecourse patterns and dynamics of coresidence, suggesting that migration itself interrupts normative lifecourse patterns of extended family household formation found in the US and Mexico.