America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2009
Children of at Least One Foreign-Born Parent
The foreign-born population of the United States has grown since 1970.20 This increase in the past generation has largely been due to immigration from Latin America and Asia, and has led to an increase in the diversity of language and cultural backgrounds of children growing up in the United States.21 As a result of language and cultural barriers confronting children and their parents, children with foreign-born parents may need additional resources both at school and at home.22
Indicator FAM4: Percentage of children ages 0–17 by nativity of child and parents, selected years 1994–2008
NOTE: Includes children under 18 in households. Children living in households with no parents present are not shown in this figure, but are included in the bases for the percentages. Native parents means that all of the parents that the child lives with are native-born, while foreign-born means that one or both of the child's parents are foreign-born. Anyone with U.S. citizenship at birth is considered native, which includes people born in the United States and in U.S. outlying areas, and people born abroad with at least one American parent. Foreign-born children with native parents are included in the native children with native parents category. Prior to 2007, Current Population Survey (CPS) data identified only one parent on the child's record. This meant that a second parent could only be identified if they were married to the first parent. In 2007, a second parent identifier was added to CPS. This permits identification of two coresident parents, even if the parents are not married to each other.
SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplements.
- In 2008, 19 percent of children were native children with at least one foreign-born parent, and 3 percent were foreign-born children with at least one foreign-born parent. Overall, the percentage of all children living in the United States with at least one foreign-born parent rose from 15 percent in 1994 to 22 percent in 2008.
- In 2008, 29 percent of foreign-born children with at least one foreign-born parent, 26 percent of native children with at least one foreign-born parent, and 7 percent of native children with native parents had a parent with less than a high school diploma or equivalent credential.23
- In 2008, 30 percent of foreign-born children with foreign-born parents lived below the poverty line, compared with 21 percent of native children with foreign-born parents and 16 percent of native children with native parents.
- Regardless of their own nativity status, children with at least one foreign-born parent more often lived in a household with two parents present than did children with no foreign-born parents. In 2008, 84 percent of native children with at least one foreign-born parent lived with two parents, compared with 70 percent of children with two native parents.
20 Schmidley, A.D. (2001). Profile of the foreign-born population in the United States: 2000. Current Population Reports (P23–206), U.S. Census Bureau. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p23-206.pdf.
21 Schmidley, A.D. (2003). The foreign-born population in the United States: March 2002, Current Population Reports (P20–539). Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p20-539.pdf.
22 Gibson, C.J., and Lennon, E. (1999). Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-Born Population of the United States: 1850–1990, Population Division Working Paper No. 29. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0029/twps0029.html.
23 If the child lived with two parents, the education reflected is that of the most educated parent.