Publications by authors named "Chenoa Flippen"

The U.S. mainland Puerto Rican population has experienced dramatic growth and geographic dispersion in recent decades.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Despite the sizeable impact of migration on childbearing, less is known about how it shapes contraceptive use undergirding fertility. We utilize binational survey data collected in 2006/7 by the study to assess how selection, disruption, and adaptation shape contraceptive use among Mexican migrant women. We address selectivity with respect to both socio-demographic and formative sexual initiation characteristics, comparing migrants to non-migrants in Mexico.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

While nearly three decades of "new immigrant destination" research has vastly enriched our understanding of diversity in contexts of reception within the United States, there is a striking lack of consensus as to the implications of geographic dispersion for immigrant incorporation. We review the literature on new destinations as they relate to ongoing debates regarding spatial assimilation and segmented assimilation; the influence of co-ethnic communities on immigrant incorporation; and the extent to which growth in immigrant populations stimulates perceived threat, nativism, and reactive ethnicity. In each of these areas, the sheer diversity of new destinations undermines consensus about their impact.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Racial attitudes have long been studied for their salience to inter-group relations and the insight they provide into the nature of ethno-racial hierarchies. While research on racial attitudes among Latinos, now the largest minority group in the United States, has grown in recent decades, critical gaps remain. As such, this paper explores Latino immigrants' attitudes toward Whites, Blacks, and other Latinos across multiple dimensions, including perceived affluence, intelligence, cultural behaviors, and receptivity to contact.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Wealth accumulation is a key dimension of ethno-racial stratification, and, among immigrants, an important indicator of incorporation. Dramatically low assets among immigrant Latinos is thus a pressing concern, necessitating a better understanding of the social forces that shape wealth assimilation. Drawing on a survey of Latino immigrants in Durham, NC, I argue for the importance of a transnational perspective on wealth for immigrant populations.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Rationale: Latino immigrants have been shown to average better health and longevity than native whites, in spite of their relative socioeconomic disadvantage. However, mental health outcomes stand in stark contrast to this epidemiological "paradox," as factors such as depression are significantly higher for Latino immigrants than other groups.

Objective: We explore the link between migration and depressive feelings using a binational random survey of Mexicans in Durham, NC and sending communities in Mexico.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Drawing on data collected in Durham, NC, this paper examines the forces shaping the labor supply and wages of immigrant Hispanic women in new destinations. The analysis evaluates the role of human capital and immigration characteristics (including legal status), family structure, and immigrant-specific labor market conditions, such as subcontracting, in shaping labor market outcomes. Findings indicate that the main determinants of labor supply among immigrant Hispanic women in Durham relate to family structure, with human capital playing a relatively minor role.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This paper draws on original survey data to assess the prevalence of perceived discrimination among Latin American immigrants to Durham, NC, a "new immigrant destinations" in the Southeastern United States. Even though discrimination has a wide-ranging impact on social groups, from blocked opportunities, to adverse health outcomes, to highlighting and reifying inter-group boundaries, research among immigrant Latinos is rare, especially in new destinations. Our theoretical framework and empirical analysis expand social constructivist approaches that view ethnic discrimination as emerging from processes of competition and incorporation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Unlabelled: Even though women have long participated in Mexico-U.S. migration studies assessing the labor market implications of international mobility for women are rare.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We build on recent developments in social organization theory to examine the sexual partnering of Mexican men in a new area of immigrant destination. We elaborate on two levels of contextual influence: 1) how differences in social capital between sending and receiving communities affect partner formation and 2) how neighborhood social cohesion influences immigrants' behavior. Data come from an original survey conducted in Durham, NC and migrant sending communities in Mexico.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This article borrows from the intersectionality literature to investigate how legal status, labor market position, and family characteristics structure the labor supply of immigrant Latinas in Durham, NC, a new immigrant destination. The analysis takes a broad view of labor force participation, analyzing the predictors of whether or not women work; whether and how the barriers to work vary across occupations; and variation in hours and weeks worked among the employed. I also explicitly investigate the extent to which family constraints interact with other social characteristics, especially legal status, in shaping women's labor market position.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This paper investigates the occupational implications of contemporary migration flows by region and race. Even though the expectation of a positive link between geographic and social mobility is a central tenet in the stratification literature, empirical assessments are rare and have produced inconsistent results. Our analysis departs from traditional frameworks by integrating both absolute and relative notions of occupational standing for evaluating migration outcomes, comparing migrants against non-migrant peers both at origin and destination.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

While the link between geographic and social mobility has long been a cornerstone of sociological approaches to migration, recent research has cast doubt on the economic returns to internal U.S. migration.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In this paper we systematically describe the connection between immigration and fertility in light of the increasing nativist reaction to Hispanic groups. We follow a life-course perspective to directly link migration and fertility transitions. The analysis combines original qualitative and quantitative data collected in Durham/Chapel Hill, NC as well as national level information from the Current Population Survey.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The dramatic increase in Hispanic immigration to the United States in recent decades has been coterminous with fundamental shifts in the labor market towards heightened flexibility, instability, and informality. As a result, the low-wage labor market is increasingly occupied by Hispanic immigrants, many of whom are undocumented. While numerous studies examine the implications for natives' employment prospects, our understanding of low-wage immigrants themselves remains underdeveloped.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The Chicago School of urban sociology and its extension in the spatial assimilation model have provided the dominant framework for understanding the interplay between immigrant social and spatial mobility. However, the main tenets of the theory were derived from the experience of pre-war, centralized cities; scholars falling under the umbrella of the Los Angeles school have recently challenged the extent to which they are applicable to the contemporary urban form, which is characterized by sprawling, decentralized, and multi-nucleated development. Indeed, new immigrant destinations, such as those scattered throughout the American Southeast, are both decentralized lack prior experience with large scale immigration.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Using longitudinal ethnographic data from the Three-City Study, we examined the relationship between sixteen low-income Puerto Rican mothers' housing dependencies and their intimate partner relations. We traced mothers' dependent housing arrangements and entrée to marital or cohabiting relationships from their teens through their procurement of independent housing while entering and maintaining intimate partner unions as adults. Findings indicated that various trigger factors led women out of their natal homes and into expedited cohabitation with romantic partners which frequently resulted in unstable unions in which mothers had little power and autonomy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Racial and ethnic inequality in homeownership remains stubbornly wide, even net of differences across groups in household-level sociodemographic characteristics. This article investigates the role of contextual forces in structuring disparate access to homeownership among minorities. Specifically, I combine household- and metropolitan-level census data to assess the impact of metropolitan housing stock, minority composition, and residential segregation on black and Hispanic housing tenure.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The reconstruction of sexuality after migration is a central dimension of immigrant health and an integral part of the process of adaptation and incorporation. Despite its significance there is little quantitative information measuring the changes in sexual behavior accompanying migration. This paper contributes to the literature connecting immigrant adaptation and health risks by comparing sexual practices and attitudes among Mexicans in Durham, NC and Mexican sending communities.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We build on social disorganization theory to formulate and test a hierarchical model of sex worker use among male Hispanic immigrants in the Durham, North Carolina area. The study considers both individual and neighborhood level dimensions of community organization as central factors affecting immigrants' exposure to sexual risks. At the individual level, we find support for the systemic model of community attachment, as time in the U.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Our study drew on original data collected in Durham, NC, and four sending communities in Mexico to examine differences in women's relationship power that are associated with migration and residence in the United States. We analyzed the personal, relationship, and social resources that condition the association between migration and women's power and the usefulness of the Relationship Control Scale (RCS) for capturing these effects. We found support for perspectives that emphasize that migration may simultaneously mitigate and reinforce gender inequities.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Context: Rates of HIV and AIDS have risen among U.S. Hispanics and in migrant-sending regions of Mexico and Central America, pointing to a link between migration and HIV.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF