Understanding Organizational Inequality in Immigrant-serving Nonprofits

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

Social and human services in the United States are increasingly provided by nonprofit organizations. Access to these services is crucial to ensure the health and welfare of individuals and their families. However, nonprofit services are not universally or broadly available to everyone because where one lives matters, and access to nonprofit organizations is more limited in suburban and rural communities. Focusing on immigrants in particular, the United States is home to over 43 million immigrants; over half lack U.S. citizenship. Relative to other disadvantaged groups, immigrants often face additional obstacles to accessing social and human services due to language barriers or service restrictions based on citizenship. This project studies the extent of inequalities in nonprofit immigrant services in health care, legal assistance, and refugee resettlement. The project investigates the reasons behind nonprofit service inequalities across place, type of immigrant community, and type of service, comparing the influence of demand, supply, and political factors. Beyond advancing knowledge about the contours of the nonprofit sector, the project will produce a publicly accessible database and web-based map of non-profit organizations and demographic data in 80 counties in the U.S. Southwest. These data will help philanthropists, political leaders, and public officials efficiently and equitably direct funding and programs to fill service gaps, connecting those who need services to nonprofit organizations. Immigrants are often in need of social and human services, but may lack ready access to non-profit organizations that provide such assistance. This project will study services at the organizational level, mapping service provision in: (1) health care by using the federally funded health clinics dataset on the Health Resources and Services Administration Data Warehouse from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; (2) immigration legal assistance using the Immigration Advocates Network National Immigration Legal Services Directory, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), and the United States Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review, and (3) refugee resettlement services drawing from the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s State Programs Directory. The project will cover 80 counties in the U.S. Southwest, including all of Arizona and Nevada and 49 counties in north and central California and will identify specific types of services, language provision, fee structures, etc. Underlying demographic data to test demand theories of nonprofit service provision will come from the American Community Survey (ACS 2014-18) to capture recent immigration, citizenship, foreign-born population, foreign-born without health insurance, individuals with limited English proficiency per language group, and immigrants living under the poverty line. To test supply theories, the project will draw on ACS data, information on county budgets, and proximity to law schools. Political variables will include data on partisanship, voting patterns, the party affiliation of elected officials, and past histories of immigrant rights mobilization. The analysis will build upon the two-step floating catchment area method to develop a service mismatch index that balances supply and demand. Findings from the project will inform sociological theories of organizations, immigration, race and the role of politics in service provision. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.