This dissertation uses data from the 2006 American Community Survey and
Decennial Census 2000 to analyze trends and determinants of poverty among Mexican
Americans and Mexican immigrants in the Southwestern United States. The chapters
include: 1) an Introduction; 2) a Literature Review with sub-sections on many issues
related to these populations; 3) a discussion of Data and Methods including a section on
the Development of a Proxy Variable for Undocumented Status; 4) Results for Mexican
Americans (Individual Level); 5) Results for Mexican Immigrants (Individual Level); 6)
Multilevel Results; and 7) Conclusions and Future Research Directions. The
introduction and literature review will provide a background and overview of the
research, as well as the analysis of poverty at the individual and contextual level (i.e. the
Super-PUMA level). Data and methods are then discussed relative to all the analyses to
be undertaken in the dissertation. In addition, specific emphasis in this chapter will be
placed on the methodology pertaining to the development of the undocumented proxy
variable. In Chapter IV data are analyzed at the individual level through the use of
logistic regression. Special attention is placed on variables pertaining to ethnicity, citizenship status, and years spent in the US, among others, in order to predict the
likelihood of Mexican Americans being in extreme poverty, one hundred percent
poverty, and low-income. The focus is then narrowed in Chapter V to Mexican
immigrants with special attention given to the effect on poverty of undocumented status.
In Chapter VI, independent variables at the contextual level are used to predict poverty
in conjunction with those used at the individual level; these include the percentage of
persons in poverty, concentration of Mexican immigrants, and the relative presence of
various industries. The findings confirm that both individual level and contextual level
predictors are key in the determination of poverty for Mexican Americans and
immigrants. In the conclusion, discussion is given to the fact that many studies have
focused on the individual level predictors of poverty; this research goes one step further
in that it examines poverty not only with respect to individual predictors, but also group
level variables.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-3066 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Garcia, Ginny Elizabeth |
| Contributors | Poston, Dudley L. (Jr.) |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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