Volume 31 - Article 20 | Pages 593–624  

The residential segregation of detailed Hispanic and Asian groups in the United States: 1980-2010

By John Iceland, Daniel Weinberg, Lauren Hughes

Abstract

Background: Racial and ethnic diversity continues to grow in communities across the United States, raising questions about the extent to which different ethnic groups will become residentially integrated.

Objective: While a number of studies have examined the residential patterns of pan-ethnic groups, our goal is to examine the segregation of several Asian and Hispanic ethnic groups - Cubans, Dominicans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Salvadorans, Asian Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Koreans, and Vietnamese. We gauge the segregation of each group from several alternative reference groups using two measures over the 1980 to 2010 period.

Results: We find that the dissimilarity of Hispanics and Asians from other groups generally held steady or declined, though, because most Hispanic and Asian groups are growing, interaction with Whites also often declined. Our analyses also indicate that pan-ethnic segregation indexes do not always capture the experience of specific groups. Among Hispanics, Mexicans are typically less residentially segregated (as measured using the dissimilarity index) from Whites, Blacks, Asians, and other Hispanics than are other Hispanic-origin groups. Among Asian ethnic groups, Japanese and Filipinos tend to have lower levels of dissimilarity from Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics than other Asian groups. Examining different dimensions of segregation also indicates that dissimilarity scores alone often do not capture to what extent various ethnic groups are actually sharing neighborhoods with each other. Finally, color lines vary across groups in some important ways, even as the dominant trend has been toward reduced racial and ethnic residential segregation over time.

Conclusions: The overarching trend is that ethnic groups are becoming more residentially integrated, suggestive of assimilation, though there is significant variation across ethnic groups.

Author’s Affiliation

• John Iceland - Pennsylvania State University, United States of America EMAIL
• Daniel Weinberg - Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, United States of America EMAIL
• Lauren Hughes - Pennsylvania State University, United States of America EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Household living arrangements and disparities in hardship
Volume 52 - Article 20

US disparities in affluence by household structure, 1959 to 2017
Volume 44 - Article 28

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Cohort fertility of immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union
Volume 50 - Article 13    | Keywords: age at first birth, assimilation, cohort analysis, fertility, immigration, parity, religiosity

Differences in occupational homogamy by race, ethnicity, and national origin: A social mobility strategy for Asian Americans
Volume 48 - Article 18    | Keywords: assortative mating, immigrants, integration, occupation, racial/ethnic differences

Union formation and fertility amongst immigrants from Pakistan and their descendants in the United Kingdom: A multichannel sequence analysis
Volume 48 - Article 10    | Keywords: assimilation, fertility, life course, migrants, sequence analysis, union formation, United Kingdom

Multiple (il)legal pathways: The diversity of immigrants' legal trajectories in Belgium
Volume 47 - Article 10    | Keywords: Belgium, immigration, integration, legal status, population register, sequence analysis, trajectories

Race and agriculture during the assimilation era: Evidence from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians
Volume 46 - Article 37    | Keywords: assimilation, intermarriage, Native Americans, wealth