Parental Involvement among First- and Second-generation Latin Americans in the United States

Immigration to a host culture often involves significant changes in parenting norms and behaviors. The authors take an acculturation lens to explore parental involvement among different generations of Latin American immigrant families. It compares the quantity and type of parental involvement of first- and second-generation Latin American immigrants to that of parents who are at least a third generation in the United States while examining whether differences exist between mothers and fathers. Data from the 2003–2013 American Time Use Survey are used for our analyses, which finds differences between parenting behaviors of first-generation immigrants from Latin America and third-generation parents. Second-generation mothers were also found to be significantly different from third-generation mothers in almost every type of parental involvement, while second-generation Latin American fathers were similar to third-generation fathers in quantity and type of parental involvement.