The characteristics that put immigrants at greater risk of poverty include a lack of formal education, poor housing and linguistic isolation (Hernandez and Chamey, 1998). However, while in some countries social welfare makes a substantial contribution to alleviating poverty among migrants (for example in France and Sweden transfers more than halve poverty rates for migrant and native-born children) in the United States, where social transfers are small, the impact on poverty among children of migrant families is negligible. Children of immigrants underperform by comparison with those with native-born parents in terms of educational achievement and labour market performance.