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Immigrants’ Welfare Use and Opportunity for Contact With Co-Ethnics*
- Demography
- Population Association of America
- Volume 38, Number 3, August 2001
- pp. 375-389
- 10.1353/dem.2001.0027
- Article
- Additional Information
In this article we examine the relationship between immigrants' welfare use and their social capital, using the 1990 census. We measure community social capital using contact with co-ethnics and co-ethnics' economic inactivity, and examine the use of AFDC and SSI in two subpopulations: single-mother families and elderly units. Major findings are that the effects of social capital differ between immigrant single-mother families and elderly units; the effects of social capital differ between the young-at-arrival elderly and the old-at-arrival elderly; and the process of AFDC use is similar for immigrants and for natives, whereas the process of SSI use is more complicated for immigrants than for natives.