The New Third Generation: Post-1965 Immigration and the Next Chapter in the Long Story of Assimilation

We compare the household characteristics of post-1965, second-generation Latino and Asian children in 1980 to a “new third-generation” in 2010, a generation later. Today’s third generation is growing up in households headed by parents who have higher socioeconomic attainment; that are more likely to be headed by intermarried parents; less likely to contain extended-family; and, when living with intermarried parents, are more likely to have children identified with a Hispanic or Asian label compared to second-generation children growing in 1980. We use these findings to inform a larger research agenda for studying the new third generation.