Jennifer Van Hook

Intergenerational coresidence is generally viewed as an adaptive living arrangement for both parents and their adult children facing economic constraints. Yet despite the importance of socioeconomic characteristics in predicting living arrangements, racial and ethnic differences persist. In this paper, we demonstrate that much of the race and ethnic variation in living arrangements is attributable to recent immigration and the relative economic position of immigrant parents. Using data from the Current Population Surveys, results suggest that recent immigrant parents, particularly Asian and Central and South American immigrant parents, are more likely to live in households in which their adult children provide most of the household income. The likelihood of living in this "dependent" role decreases with duration of residence in the United States. Differences in the ethnic composition and incomes of recent older immigrants relative to longer resident immigrants who age in the United States and to the U.S. born explains little of the greater reliance on coresidence by recent immigrant parents. The likelihood of living in a household in which the parent themselves provides the majority of the household income is not as tied to nativity and appears to be most common among younger parents. Parents' Coresidence with Adult Children: Can Immigration Explain Race and Ethnic Variation? The population of older adults in the United States has risen dramatically and will continue to rise well into the next century. As our society ages, the racial/ethnic composition of the older generation also will change. The percent of those aged 65 and older who are members of a racial or ethnic minority group is projected to increase from 16 percent in 1998 to 24 percent in 2025, and to 34 percent in 2050 (U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports P25-1130: 94, Table 3). These changes raise significant questions about the economic and social well being of older adults from different backgrounds. For example, black, Hispanic and Asian elderly tend to be poorer than nonHispanic whites, and all are more likely to reside with their children (Burr and Mutchler, 1992; Himes, Hogan and Eggebeen, 1996); perhaps in part because they derive social and economic support from their children. As minorities come to make up a larger proportion of the overall elderly population, they have the potential to transform intergenerational relations. One key factor leading to the greater race/ethnic diversity of the older population is immigration. While some older immigrants were relatively young when they entered the United States, many are newer arrivals. As of 1990, 37% of the elderly foreign-born population in the U.S. had entered after 1965 (Rogers and Raymer, 2000). It stands to reason that recent immigration may be contributing to the diversity of intergenerational living arrangements across a variety of minority groups. If race/ethnic differences in living arrangements are attributable to immigration (recent immigration, in particular), this would imply that the current diversity of living arrangements is temporary unless immigration continues at high enough levels to fuel it. Further, such a result would imply that the projected changes in race/ethnic composition would not necessarily be accompanied by society-wide shifts in living arrangements. On the other hand, if the current race/ethnic differences in living arrangements cut across both immigrant and native groups and can be linked to