Senior Fellow Ajay Chaudry answers five questions about how children of immigrants are changing the face of America’s metropolitan areas. At stake in how metros meet the challenges and opportunities of this young, growing, and diverse population is the whole nation’s future.
“Children of Immigrants and the Changing Face of Metropolitan America” by Ajay Chaudry and Karina Fortuny
“Children of Immigrants: Growing National and State Diversity” by Karina Fortuny and Ajay Chaudry
November 2, 2011
1. How are metros changing in terms of racial and ethnic diversity, particularly in the child population?
Over the past decade, we’ve really seen a stark change in the population of children living in the country’s metropolitan areas. The 100 largest metros had turned majority-minority by 2009. Fifty-one percent of all children in the top 100 metros were Asian, black, or Hispanic. And, our analysis shows, much of this change was led by children of immigrants—now one out of every four kids in the top 100 metros.
Nationwide, the child population grew by only 2.6 percent in the past decade—and all of that growth was fueled by children of immigrants. In metro areas, this group grew at a 5 percent rate. So, relative to the rest of the country, metro populations are younger, even though the nation as a whole is aging. The elderly depend on the working-age population and, right now, our future labor force is growing only because of the children of immigrants.
2. What’s driving this growth?
It’s not immigration. Births are driving the sea change in diversity among children, so this trend will continue even as immigration flows ebb, as they have in the past couple years. Adult immigrants tend to be younger and in their childbearing years, so they’re more likely to have children in the United States. On top of that, birth rates among U.S.-born parents have been inching downward for 20 years.
Another interesting thing is happening too. While nearly half of all children of immigrants are concentrated in 10 large metro areas, immigrant populations are spreading and growing in new destination cities. This trend started in the 1980s and picked up speed in the 1990s. Immigrant populations are still growing in such traditional gateway cities as New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, and Chicago. But the growth rate is much slower than in some new destination cities like Raleigh, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Nashville, and Atlanta. In six metros, the immigrant population has doubled just in the past decade.
"WHAT YOU SEE IN THE CHILD POPULATION TODAY AND IN U.S. METROS IS A HARBINGER OF WHAT TOMORROW’S NATIONAL POPULATION WILL LOOK LIKE.”
3. Texas Governor Rick Perry’s decision to support in-state college tuition for children of illegal immigrants came up in the GOP primary debates. Will more states be asking themselves this question soon as the immigrant population grows?
Yes. Places like El Paso and Houston and McAllen in Texas have among the largest shares of children of immigrants, so educating them has become a pressing challenge, since that is who Texas’s children are. If a student was brought here by his parents, spends his entire life in Texas, and attends Texas schools, should he be eligible for in-state tuition or should he pay the equivalent of what a Mexican national, for example, would pay? As of now, children born abroad but educated in U.S. schools can pay in-state tuition rates in 13 states.
The economic argument is that it’s a wise investment to treat these children the same as you would other students because they are a significant part of the state’s labor base. Then, there’s fairness to think about too. Why not treat these children as what they are—long-term residents of the state and country who will most likely live, work, and pay taxes here for the rest of their lives? The argument against in-state tuition says we shouldn’t be subsidizing the education of children who came to the United States illegally. The counterargument is that these children are already here and the country can’t afford to leave a large percentage of its population uneducated.
At the national level, we have the debates surrounding the Dream Act, which would create a path to citizenship for children who immigrated to the United States when they were young and have been educated in U.S. schools. The Dream Act would allow children to become permanent residents and eventually citizens if they complete higher education or serve in the military.
4. What are other implications of this growing population for local, state, and federal policy?
Metros face challenges in how to educate children of immigrants and serve their families. Let’s take education, for example. As more children of immigrants move into new destinations that haven’t traditionally served immigrants, school systems can be hard-pressed to provide English language instruction and adjust to cultural differences and socioeconomic disparities. Few communities have the experience, resources, social networks, and community-based organizations like Los Angeles or New York does for helping immigrants navigate schools and social services.
But there’s the pay-off side to consider too—the long-term labor market growth, resources, and potential of these children. The key issue is—what will the labor market be like when these children become adults? How much will they be able to contribute to economic growth and to covering the costs of Social Security and Medicare as the population ages? When you think about it, this demographic change touches on almost every major policy issue. Whether it’s tax revenue and Social Security or the local costs for schools and service providers, localities, states, and the country need to mind what’s happening.
5. How does this demographic trend differ among metropolitan areas?
Metros probably differ from each other demographically now more than ever before. Take Memphis, where the minority share of the population are primarily children with U.S.-born African-American parents, but which also started to see a growing influx of Hispanic immigrants. Some metros have no dominant immigrant or minority population. In San Francisco, you have very large shares of children of Asian immigrants, Latino immigrants, U.S.-born Asians, and U.S.-born Hispanics. In Tucson, the minority population is mostly Hispanic—with more than half children of U.S.-born Hispanics and less than half children of Hispanic immigrants. Those differences matter, especially when you consider recent state legislation that hinges on distinguishing between the immigrant status of children and that of their families.
In several metros, particularly in the South and Mountain states, the number of children of natives and children of immigrants both grew, but the children of immigrants population grew slightly more. Other metros—such as Chicago, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Memphis—saw the number of children of U.S.-born parents fall but the number of children of immigrants grow by about as much, helping to keep the child population relatively stable.
Then you have metros, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest, where there was a net decline in children. In these, we see a large drop in the children of natives and a slight rise in the children of immigrants to counteract some of that decline.
The number of children of immigrants fell slightly in four metro areas—Los Angeles, El Paso, Providence, and Honolulu. But these metros already had large shares of children of immigrants, so the decline was really more of a leveling off of the growth. And most also saw declines in the U.S.-born population as well.
Diversity within immigrant populations is great too. Some metros attract more lower-skilled immigrants who move to find work in certain industries, like construction or agriculture. Other metros, such as San Jose, have a very diverse mix of skill levels and ethnicities. Having a college-educated parent is as likely among children of immigrants as it is among children of U.S.-born parents.
What you see in the child population today and in U.S. metros is a harbinger of what tomorrow’s national population will look like. The challenge is how we make the most of this demographic reality.
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