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The effects of racial segregation and political threat with reference to whites and African-American on police force size are studied. Findings reveal that whites' threat is more than one-third of the effect of African-American on police force size.

Data from Census 2000 show that black-white segregation declined modestly at the national level after 1980, while Hispanic and Asian segregation rose in most metropolitan areas. Changes that may have produced greater changes for blacks proved to have insignificant effects: there was no net shift of the black population toward less-segregated areas, segregation at the metropolitan level did not decline more in areas where the incomes of blacks came closer to the incomes of whites over time, and the emergence of more multiethnic metropolises had no impact. As in the past, declines were centered in the South and West and in areas with smaller black populations. Increases in Hispanic and Asian segregation in individual metropolitan areas were counterbalanced by a net movement of these two groups toward areas of lower segregation. These increases were associated especially with the more rapid growth in the Hispanic and Asian populations. Hispanic segregation increased more in regions where group members had declining incomes relative to the incomes of whites and included a growing share of immigrants.

Self-employment and work in sectors with high concentrations of owners and workers of the same ethnicity have been identified as potential routes of economic success for immigrants. This study uses 1990 census data to assess the effects of self-employment, ethnic employment, and their interaction on the odds of being at work, on number of hours worked, and on earnings of individual members of several representative groups. These groups include Cubans in Miami; African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Koreans, Chinese and Dominicans in New York; and African Americans, Koreans, Chinese, Mexicans and Salvadorans in Los Angeles. Work in ethnic sectors of the economy has no consistent effects, although work in their niche in the public sector offers greater rewards than any other type of employment for African Americans and Puerto Ricans. Findings are mixed for self-employment, and its estimated effect on earnings depends on model specification. We conclude that the self-employed work longer hours but in many cases at lo wer hourly rates. The effects of self-employment are the same in ethnic sectors as in the mainstream economy., In the 1960s, a simple dual economy model was a useful device for referring to the concentration of minority workers in certain low-wage industries (Edwards, Reich and Gordon, 1975). The [...]

We investigate whether a three-generation model of linguistic assimilation, known from previous waves of immigration, can be applied to the descendants of contemporary immigrant groups. Using the 5% Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample 1990 file, we examine the home languages of second- and third-generation children and compare the degree of their language shift against that among the descendants of European immigrants, as evidenced in the 1940 and 1970 censuses. Overall, the rates of speaking only English for a number of contemporary groups suggest that Anglicization is occurring at roughly the same pace for Asians as it did for Europeans, but is slower among the descendants of Spanish speakers. Multivariate models for three critical groups--Chinese, Cubans, and Mexicans--indicate that the home languages of third-generation children are most affected by factors, such as intermarriage, that determine the languages spoken by adults and by the communal context.

Abstract To understand the impacts of large-scale immigration on neighborhood contexts, we employ locational-attainment models, in which two characteristics of a neighborhood, its average household income and the majority group's [...]

For a number of contemporary immigrant groups, suburbanization is occurring at high levels, and either increased or remained stable during the 1980s, a decade of high immigration. We investigate whether these settlement patterns are consistent with spatial-assimilation theory. Using Public Use Microdata from the 1980 and 1990 U.S. censuses, we examine the link between suburban residence and life-cycle, socioeconomic, and assimilation characteristics for 11 racial/ethnic groups, including those growing most from contemporary immigration as well as non-Hispanic whites. We find support for some aspects of the theory. The determinants of suburban residence are consistent between the 1980 and 1990 models, with some important exceptions: Among several groups, especially Asian groups, the effects of very recent immigration and linguistic assimilation have weakened. Our findings indicate that barriers to the entry of new immigrants to suburbia are now lower than before. The growing numbers of recent immigrants there suggest the emergence of new ethnic concentrations and infrastructure.