Abstract
Over the past decade the Journal of Family and Economic Issues (JFEI) has published 16 articles focused on racial/ethnic family and economic issues. In this review we have identified five themes among these papers: remittance attitudes and behaviors, marriage, parenting, educational attainment, family resource management, and financial attitudes and behaviors. Using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies with multiracial and race specific samples these papers have strived to add to the literature. While advancements have been made, we see the potential for future research that examines not only within and between racial/ethnic group differences but adds to our understanding of factors that drive these differences. We make recommendations for future research as we hope to see this work continue in JFEI.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ali, M. M., & Ajilore, O. (2011). Can marriage reduce risky health behavior for African-Americans? Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 32, 191–203. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-010-9242-z.
Arellanes, J. A., Viramontez Anguiano, R. P., & Lohman, B. J. (2017). The desire to thrive: Families overcoming economic hardships through educational aspirations. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 38(3), 338–353. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-017-9539-2.
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191.
Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. The American Psychologist, 37(2), 122–147. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.37.2.122.
Bandura, A. (1986). The explanatory and predictive scope of self-efficacy theory. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 4(3), 359–373. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.1986.4.3.359.
Baum, S., & Flores, S. (2011). Higher education and children in immigrant families. The Future of Children, 21(1), 171–193.
Becker, G. S. (1973). A theory of marriage: Part i. The Journal of Political Economy, 81(4), 813–846. https://doi.org/10.1086/260084.
Belsky, J. (1984). The determinants of parenting: A process model. Child Development, 55(1), 83–96. https://doi.org/10.2307/1129836.
Bowman, S. W. (2011). Multigenerational interactions in black middle class wealth and asset decision making. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 32(1), 15–26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-010-9204-5.
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American Psychologist, 32(7), 513–531. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.32.7.513.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1989). Ecological systems theory. In R. Vasta (Ed.), Annals of child development: Vol. 6. Six theories of child development-revised formulations and current issues (pp. 187–249). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Cox, D. R. (1972). Regression models and life-tables. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B, 34(2), 187–220.
Cox, D. R. (1975). Partial likelihood. Biometrika, 62(2), 269–276. https://doi.org/10.1093/biomet/62.2.269.
Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Identity politics, intersectionality, and violence against women. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299.
Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Danes, S. M., Meraz, A. A., & Landers, A. L. (2016). Cultural meanings of resource management for Mexican-Americans. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 37(4), 607–623. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-015-9476-x.
Daniels, G. E., Kakar, V., & Chaudhuri, A. (2017). Racial differences in transitions to marriage for unmarried mothers. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 38, 370–389. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-017-9538-3.
Deacon, R. E., & Firebaugh, F. M. (1988). Family resource management: Principles and applications. Boston: Allyn & Bacon Inc.
Evans, R. G., & Stoddart, G. L. (1990). Producing health, consuming health care. Social Science and Medicine, 31(12), 1347–1363. https://doi.org/10.1016/0277-9536(90)90074-3.
Evans, R. G., & Stoddart, G. L. (2017). Producing health, consuming health care. Why are some people healthy and others not? (pp. 27–64). London: Routledge.
Fan, J. X., & Zuiker, V. S. (1998). A comparison of household budget allocation patterns between Hispanic Americans and non-Hispanic White Americans. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 19(2), 151–174. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022900707619.
Fan, Y. (2000). A classification of Chinese culture. Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, 7(2), 3–10. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6606.1999.tb00764.x.
Feldstein, M. (1995). College scholarship rules and private saving. American Economic Review, 85(3), 522–566.
Fontes, A., & Fan, J. X. (2006). The effects of ethnic identity on household budget allocation to status conveying goods. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 27, 643–663.
Gershoff, E. T., Goodman, G. S., Miller-Perrin, C., Holden, G. W., Jackson, Y., & Kazdin, A. E. (2019). There is still no evidence that physical punishment is effective or beneficial: Reply to Larzelere, Gunnoe, Ferguson, and Roberts (2019) and Rohner and Melendez-Rhodes (2019). American Psychologist, 74(4), 503–505. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000474.
Gilgun, J. F., Daly, K., & Handel, G. (1992). Qualitative methods in family research. Newbury Park: Sage.
Golash-Boza, T. (2016). A critical and comprehensive sociological theory of race and racism. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 2(2), 129–141.
Golash-Boza, T., & Darity, W. (2008). Latino racial choices: The effects of skin colour and discrimination on Latinos’ and Latinas’ racial self-identifications. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31(5), 899–934. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870701568858.
Goldman, N. (1993). Marriage selection and mortality patterns: Inferences and fallacies. Demography, 30(2), 189–208. https://doi.org/10.2307/2061837.
Gray, K., Clancy, M., Sherraden, M. S., Wagner, K., & Miller-Cribbs, J. (2012). Interviews with mothers of young children in the SEED for Oklahoma Kids college savings experiment (CSD Research Report No. 12–53). Retrieved May 7, 2020, from Washington University, Center for Social Development website https://csd.wustl.edu/publications/documents/rp12-53.pdf.
Greene, K., & Garner, P. W. (2012). African American mothers’ disciplinary responses: Associations with family background characteristics, maternal childrearing attitudes, and child manageability. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 33(4), 400–409. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-012-9286-3.
Hanna, S. D., Lee, J., & Lindamood, S. (2015). Financial behavior and attitudes of Asians compared to other racial/ethnic groups in the United States. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 36(3), 309–318. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-015-9447-2.
Harris, K. M., Halpern, C. T., Whitsel, E., Hussey, J., Tabor, J., Entzel, P., et al. (2009). The national longitudinal study of adolescent health: Research design. https://www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/addhealth/design.
Huang, J., Nam, Y., & Lee, E. J. (2015). Financial capability and economic hardship among low-income older Asian immigrants in a supported employment program. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 36(2), 239–250. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-014-9398-z.
Kaplan, E. L., & Meier, P. (1958). Nonparametric estimation from incomplete observations. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 53(282), 457–481. https://doi.org/10.2307/2281868.
Lauderdale, M. K., & Heckman, S. J. (2017). Family background and higher education attainment among children of immigrants. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 38(3), 327–337. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-017-9537-4.
Mathew, S., Zhai, F., & Gao, Q. (2017). Social support and parental nurturance among Asian Indian families in the US: Mediating role of parenting self-efficacy. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 38(3), 354–369. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-017-9530-y.
Mckinley, B., & Brown, T. L. (2020). Middle and high income Black families. In Black families: A systems approach. San Diego, CA: Cognella.
Murray, J. (2000). Marital protection and marital selection: Evidence from a historical-prospective sample of American men. Demography, 37(4), 511–521. https://doi.org/10.1353/dem.2000.0010.
Muruthi, B., Watkins, K., McCoy, M., Maruthi, J. R., & Kiprono, F. J. (2017). "I feel happy that I can be useful to others": Preliminary study of East African women and their remittance behavior. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 38(3), 315–326. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-017-9533-8.
Nam, Y., Hole, E., Sherraden, M., & Clancy, M. M. (2018). Program knowledge and racial disparities in savings outcomes in a Child Development Account experiment. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 39(1), 145–162. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-017-9544-5.
Ng, K. M., & Smith, S. (2006). The relationships between attachment theory and multigenerational family systems theory. The Family Journal, 14, 430–439. https://doi.org/10.1177/1066480706290976.
Nussbaum, M. C. (1999). Women and human development: The capabilities approach. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ouyang, C., Hanna, S. D., & Kim, K. T. (2019). Are Asian households in the U.S. more likely than other households to help children with college costs? Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 40(3), 540–552. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-019-09614-6.
Paat, Y.-F. (2013). Understanding the role of immigrant families’ cultural and structural mechanisms in immigrant children’s experiences beyond high school: Lessons for social work practitioners. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 23(4), 514–528.
Perna, L. W. (2006). Studying college access and choice: A proposed conceptual model. Higher education (pp. 99–157). Berlin: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4512-3_3.
Pew Research Center. (2017). Key facts about Asian Americans, a diverse and growing population. FactTank: News in the Numbers. Retrieved May 7, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/08/key-facts-about-asian-americans/.
Rivas-Drake, D., & Mooney, M. (2009). Neither colorblind nor oppositional: Perceived minority status and trajectories of academic adjustment among Latinos in elite higher education. Developmental Psychology, 45(3), 642–651. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014135.
Rosa, E. M., & Tudge, J. (2013). Urie Bronfenbrenner's theory of human development: Its evolution from ecology to bioecology. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 5(4), 243–258.
Rosenbaum, P. R., & Rubin, D. B. (1983). The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects. Biometrika, 70(1), 41–55. https://doi.org/10.1093/biomet/70.1.41.
Roy, R. N., & Rollins, A. (Eds.). (2019). Biracial families—Crossing boundaries, blending cultures, and challenging racial ideologies. New York: Springer.
Sawilowsky, S. (2011). Statistical fallacies: Misconceptions, and myths. In M. Lovric (Ed.), International encyclopedia of statistical science (Vol. 3, pp. 1412–1417). Berlin: Springer.
Sen, A. (2002). Rationality and freedom. Cambridge: Belknap Press.
Shih, K. Y., Chang, T. F., & Chen, S. Y. (2019). Impacts of the model minority myth on Asian American individuals and families: Social justice and critical race feminist perspectives. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 11(3), 412–428.
Shooshtari, S., Harvey, C. D. H., Ferguson, E., Heinonen, T., & Khan, S. (2014). Effects of remittance behavior on the lives of recent immigrants to Canada from the Philippines: A population-based longitudinal study. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 35(1), 95–105. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-013-9356-1.
Sowell, T. (2007). Basic economics: A common sense guide to the economy (3rd ed.). New York: Basic Books.
Sowell, T. (2018). Discrimination and disparities. New York: Basic Books.
Su, J. H., & Addo, F. R. (2018). Born without a silver spoon: Race, wealth, and unintended childbearing. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 39(4), 600–615. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-018-9577-4.
Tudge, J. R., Payir, A., Merçon-Vargas, E., Cao, H., Liang, Y., Li, J., et al. (2016). Still misused after all these years? A reevaluation of the uses of Bronfenbrenner's bioecological theory of human development. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 8(4), 427–445.
Williamson, O. E. (1981). The economics of organization: The transaction cost approach. American Journal of Sociology, 87(3), 548–577. https://doi.org/10.1086/227496.
Yao, R., Sharpe, D. L., & Gorham, E. E. (2011). An exploratory study of Chinese Americans’ debt ownership. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 32(4), 600–611. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-011-9271-2.
Funding
Not applicable.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
There is no conflict of interest among the three authors of this review.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This is one of several papers published together in Journal of Family and Economic Issues on the “Special Issue on Virtual Decade in Review”.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Roy, R.N., James, A.G. & Brown, T.L. Racial/Ethnic Minority Families. J Fam Econ Iss 42 (Suppl 1), 84–100 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-020-09712-w
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-020-09712-w