The New Third Generation: Post‐1965 Immigration and the Next Chapter in the Long Story of Assimilation

Abstract

Now is the time for social scientists to focus an analytical lens on the new third generation to see what their experiences reveal about post‐1965 assimilation. This paper is a first step. We compare the household characteristics of post‐1965, second‐generation Latino and Asian children in 1980 to a “new third generation” in 2010. Today's new third generation is growing up in households headed by parents who have higher socioeconomic attainment; that are more likely to be headed by intermarried parents; that are less likely to contain extended family; and that, when living with intermarried parents, are more likely to have children identified with a Hispanic or Asian label compared to second‐generation children growing in 1980. We use these findings to inform a larger research agenda for studying the new third generation.