Report cover featuring artwork of an elderly man giving house keys to a family of color

Summer 2008

Dowell Myers

Please note: reports dated earlier than June 2020 were published under our previous names: the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) or the USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII).

Debates about immigration in America have been backward looking, emphasizing trends of the last 10 years, not the future. In the decade ahead, much will change—immigrants and the rest of us included. The preoccupations with matters of legal status, important as they are, have distracted us from the larger question of whether we need immigrants in the first place. For that answer we must look more closely at American society itself. This report predicts two major sets of changes in the decade ahead. One entails the growing length of settlement by immigrants who arrived after 1970—and their burgeoning upward mobility, which is well under way. The other vector of change centers on the aging of the baby boom generation and the many changes it portends for the economy. How do immigrants fit into the overall picture of change in America?

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Immigrants’ Contributions in an Aging America

Read our other publications by research area

    Immigrant Integration & Racial Justice

    Our work on immigrant integration and racial justice brings together three emphases: scholarship that draws on academic theory and rigorous research, data that provides information structured to highlight the process of immigrant integration over time, and engagement that seeks to create new dialogues with government, community organizers, business and civic leaders, immigrants and the voting public to advance immigrant integration and racial equity.

    Economic Inclusion & Climate Equity

    In the area of economic inclusion, we at ERI advance academic theory and practical applications linking economic growth, environmental quality, and civic health with bridging of racial and other gaps; produce accessible and actionable data and analysis through the data tools; and establish research partnerships to deepen and advance the dialogue, planning, and actions around racial equity, environmental justice, and the built environment.

    Social Movements & Governing Power

    ERI’s work in the area of governing power includes: conducting cross-disciplinary studies of today’s social movements, supporting learning and strategizing efforts to advance dialogues among organizers, funders, intermediaries, evaluators, and academics, and developing research-based social change frameworks and tools to inform—and be informed by—real-world, real-time efforts towards a vision of deep change.

    Publications Directory

    In 2020, the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) and the USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII) merged to form the USC Equity Research Institute (ERI).

    The full list of publications published under our previous and current names can be found in our publications directory.

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