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Mothers' citizenship status and household food insecurity among low‐income children of immigrants
Author(s) -
Kalil Ariel,
Chen JenHao
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
new directions for child and adolescent development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.628
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 1534-8687
pISSN - 1520-3247
DOI - 10.1002/cd.222
Subject(s) - food insecurity , immigration , citizenship , low income , psychology , demographic economics , socioeconomics , sociology , developmental psychology , economic growth , food security , political science , economics , geography , politics , agriculture , law , archaeology
Abstract Recent data have shown that children of immigrant noncitizens experience more persistent and higher levels of food insecurity than the children of citizens following welfare reform. However, little is known about the range of factors that might explain different rates of food insecurity in the different populations. In this study, the authors used national data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten cohort to assess this question, using multivariate probit regression analyses in a low‐income sample. They found that households of children (foreign and U.S.‐born) with noncitizen mothers are at substantially greater risk of food insecurity than their counterparts with citizen mothers and that demographic characteristics such as being Latina, levels of maternal education, and large household size explain about half of the difference in rates. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.