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Contact Robert Bernstein
EMBARGOED UNTIL: 12:01 A.M. EST, FEBRUARY 7, 2002
(THURSDAY)
Robert Bernstein
CB02-18
Public Information Office
301-457-3030/301-457-3670 (fax)
301-457-1037 (TDD)
e-mail: pio@census.gov
The number of foreign-born and first-generation U.S. residents has
reached the highest level in U.S. history,
56 million, or a ratio of 1-in-5, the Commerce Department's Census Bureau
said today.
"And the number of foreign-born and first-generation residents is likely
to rise in the future as recent immigrants form families," said Dianne
Schmidley, author of Profile of the Foreign-Born Population in the United
States: 2000. "One indication of this is the fact that births to
foreign-born women now account for 1-in-5 births in the United States,
which is up from about 1-in-20 three decades ago."
The number of people in 2000 who either were foreign-born themselves or
who had at least one foreign-born parent grew from 34 million in 1970
primarily because of the tripling of the foreign-born population over the
same 30-year period. The foreign-born population alone was estimated at 28
million, or 1-in-10 U.S. residents, in 2000.
As a result of the high levels of international migration of young
adults to the United States
during the period 1970-2000, the foreign-born and first-generation
population has become
not only larger, but also younger. As a result, 21 percent of the nation's
population under age
25 in 2000 was either foreign-born or first-generation, up from only 7
percent in 1970.
The report, which is accompanied by a set of detailed tables, presents
the first-ever Census Bureau analysis of the characteristics of children
who live with foreign-born parents.
"Contrary to popular belief," said Schmidley, "most children who live
with foreign-born parents were born in the United States and not abroad."
Indeed, among the 11.5 million children who lived with foreign-born
householders in 2000, about 8-in-10 were born in the United States.
Other highlights of the report:
-- Although the survey sample was not large enough to rank most
countries with complete accuracy, Latin America and Asia probably
accounted for as many as nine of the 10 leading countries of birth
for the U.S. foreign-born in 2000. (See charts 1a-1d.) Mexico alone
accounted for more than one-quarter of this population.
-- A ratio of 7-in-10 foreign-born people lived in the six states
having a foreign-born population of 1 million or more. These ranged
from 8.8 million in California to 1.2 million each in New Jersey and
Illinois. More than 3-in-10 foreign-born people lived in the Los
Angeles and New York metropolitan areas alone.
-- The 1999 median income of households with a foreign-born
householder ranged from a low of $29,388 for those where the
householder was born in Latin America to a high of $51,363 for those
whose householders were born in Asia.
-- The median duration of residence in the United States for the
foreign-born population was 25 years for those from Europe and 14
years each for those from Asia and those from Latin America.
-- Average household size for foreign-born households ranged from a
high of 3.7 persons for those with Latin American householders to a
low of about 2.3 persons for those with householders from Canada and
Europe.
-- Among foreign-born people who were 25 or older, high-school
completion rates ranged from a low of
34 percent for those from Mexico to a high of 95 percent for those
from Africa.
-- While more than 6-in-10 householders from Europe owned their
homes, just over 4-in-10 from Latin America did so.
The data come from a comprehensive report released on the Internet
today. The report covers geographic, demographic, social, economic and
housing characteristics of the country's foreign-born population.
Accompanying it are more than 400 pages of tables, including data on
country or area of birth and state and metropolitan area of residence.
The Census Bureau cautioned the public not to confuse these estimates
with Census 2000 Supplementary Survey (C2SS) data released recently.
Today's estimates are based on data collected in the March 2000 Current
Population Survey and do not reflect the results of Census 2000 or the
C2SS. Data from 1990 and earlier censuses are included in the report for
purposes of comparison. Statistics from sample surveys are subject to
sampling and
nonsampling error.
Major funding for the report was provided by the Immigration and
Naturalization Service of the U.S. Department of Justice. |
