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12.04.02

The Improving Educational Profile Of Latino Immigrants

It is a commonplace claim that the education level of the Latino immigrant population is continually falling behind that of the U.S.-born population. However, the Pew Hispanic Center finds that the educational profile of the adult population of foreign-born Latinos has improved significantly during the past three decades. These gains, however, have not yet produced a notable convergence with the level of education in the native-born U.S. population. During the period 1970 to 2000 the native-born population also experienced improvements of education that outpaced the progress among Latino immigrants. Nonetheless, the trends identified in this report suggest that the gap between immigrants and natives will narrow in the future.

07.30.02

Latino Growth In Metropolitan America

The Latino population is rapidly evolving and that its demographic impact on the nation is changing quickly. Significant concentrations of Hispanics are no longer confined to a few regions such as Southern California or the Southwest, or only to a few cities like New York and Miami. Instead, in the coming years Hispanic population growth will most impact communities that had relatively few Latinos a decade ago.

03.21.02

How Many Undocumented

There are more than 5 million unauthorized workers in the U.S. economy. This study estimates that these workers have become a very substantial presence in the sectors where they are concentrated. More than a million undocumented persons are employed in manufacturing and a similar number in the service industries. More than 600,000 work in construction and more than 700,000 in restaurants.

01.24.02

The Socioeconomic Status of Hispanic New Yorkers

This research report presents data showing the major demographic and socioeconomic changes in the Hispanic population of New York in the 1990s. It shows that despite gains in some areas, on average, Hispanics in New York were not significantly better-off in 2000 than in 1990. The household income per capita of Hispanic New Yorkers increased only slightly in the 1990s, compared to a much stronger expansion among White New Yorkers. By 2000, Hispanics displayed per-capita income of about one-third that of the non-Hispanic White population. The roots of the lack of change in Hispanic overall socioeconomic status in the 1990s lie, first, in the major demographic changes in the city, as reflected in an influx of relatively unskilled immigrants and an exodus of relatively skilled, high-income Hispanic New Yorkers; it also responds to the sluggish economic recovery of the city from one of its most severe recessions this century.

01.24.02

Estimates of Numbers of Unauthorized Migrants Residing In the United States

This brief report presents estimates of the number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States in mid-2001 for three separate groups: the total unauthorized population, the Mexican unauthorized population, and the non-Mexican Central American unauthorized population. The approach to estimation used is one set forth recently by Bean, et al (2001) that extends and amplifies work originally begun as part of the Mexico/U.S. Binational Migration Study (1997; Bean, et al. 1998). The specific features of the approach are described in detail in Bean, et al (2001). Basically, the method involves subtracting estimates of the numbers of persons residing in the country legally from the numbers of foreign born persons in official government surveys (which are known to contain both legal and unauthorized persons), and then adjusting for extra undercount of such persons in the surveys. The resulting figures give estimates of various unauthorized populations in the country.