Hispanics and the Future of America (2006) / Chapter Skim
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3 The Demographic Foundations of the Latino Population--Jorge Durand, Edward Telles, and Jennifer Flashman
3 The Demographic Foundations of the Latino Population--Jorge Durand, Edward Telles, and Jennifer Flashman
Pages 66-99
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From page 66... ...
Overall, it describes how relatively high rates of immigration and fertility have shaped the growth and the creation of an especially youthful age structure among the Latino population. In particular, it examines how changing immigration policies, social networks, and other factors have led to immigration from Latin America and then how a changing labor market as well as immigration policies have affected migration patterns in the United States and prompted the regional dispersion of Latinos.
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From page 67... ...
However, many other groups have also become part of the new immigration from Latin America, as the previous chapter has shown. While Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans constituted almost all Latinos in the United States just 30 years ago, Dominicans, Central Americans, and South Americans have doubled or tripled their numbers in the past two decades.
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From page 68... ...
in the 1980s. ORIGINS OF LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION The growth and increasing national diversity of immigration from Latin America was shown in Chapter 2, but in this chapter we seek to describe its sources.
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From page 69... ...
Demographic, political, and economic factors in Latin America also help to account for the large increases in immigration from that region in the 1980s and 1990s. In the 1970s, many countries began birth control programs, as a demographic transition with continuing high fertility rates and decreasing mortality rates led to sharp population growth.
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From page 70... ...
. In addition, there has been special legislation related to the specific cases of Cubans and Central Americans.
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From page 71... ...
To some degree, Central Americans had a more difficult time qualifying for these programs, since many of these new immigrants did not meet the residency requirements (Donato, Durand, and Massey, 1992; Durand, 1998; Massey et al., 2002)
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From page 72... ...
the 1996 IIRAIRA law placed restrictions on social benefits for illegal immigrants, and (3) the constitutional reforms in several Latin American nations, such as Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, and Peru, allowed migrants to acquire a new nationality without losing their original one.
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From page 73... ...
U.S. immigration laws have treated specific Latin American countries distinctly, which may help explain why particular countries have sent more immigrants than others.
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From page 74... ...
This is the easiest and most cost-effective way to secure an immigration visa, because persons chosen under this system have the right to migrate with their families to the United States. In some cases, they are given pre BOX 3-1 H2A and H2B Visas The H2A temporary agricultural visa is a nonimmigrant visa that allows foreign nationals to enter the United States to perform agricultural labor or services of a temporary or seasonal nature.
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From page 75... ...
. Central American countries, such as Nicaragua and, to a lesser extent, El Salvador and Guatemala, have also benefited from special regularization programs.
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From page 76... ...
. If IRCA was for Mexicans the means of legal recourse that allowed many undocumented migrants in their communities to legalize their situation, for Central Americans the legislative processes provided by NACARA and TPS were fundamental to their establishing permanent residence on American soil.
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From page 77... ...
Mexicans constitute 57 percent of all undocumented, and other Latin Americans, primarily Central Americans, constitute 23 percent (Passel and Fix, 2004)
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From page 78... ...
All Latino groups shown have higher fertility rates than non TABLE 3-2 Total Fertility Rates by Ethnicity and Children Ever Born Rates to Women Ages 35 to 44 by Ethnicity and Generation Since Immigration, Women 35 to 44, 2000 Children Ever Born to Women Ages 35 to 44 Total 2nd 3rd Ethnicity Fertility Rate Total Immigrants Generation Generation Mexican 3.3 2.5 2.7 2.1 2.3 Puerto Rican 2.6 2.2 2.3 2.2 n.a. Cuban 1.9 n.a.
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From page 79... ...
Thus, there is limited support for convergence toward the fertility of black and white native-born groups, although the second generation has even lower fertility than the third, which continues to have considerably higher fertility than black and white natives.2 Interestingly, the fertility rates of white, black, and Asian immigrants are lower than those of the well-established and much more common thirdgeneration black and white population. Non-Mexican Latino populations are generally too small to capture a reliable fertility index, except for the case of Puerto Ricans.
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From page 80... ...
In terms of sex, the immigrant population is only slightly more male than female, making it more gender-balanced than earlier Latino immigrant waves. By the second and third generations, there is little difference between the percentage distribution of males and females by age, as expected from a 3Fertility rates for Mexico, Cuba, and Puerto Rico in 2000 can be found in United Nations (2003)
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From page 81... ...
The youthfulness of the Latino population is especially apparent in comparison to the age pyramids for blacks and whites who are not His 85-90 80-84 1st 75-79 2nd 70-74 65-69 3rd 60-64 1st 55-59 2nd 50-54 45-49 3rd Age 40-44 35-39 30-34 25-29 20-24 15-19 10-14 5-9 0-4 -15.00 -10.00 -5.00 0.00 5.00 10.00 15.00 Percentage of Population FIGURE 3-3 Agesex distribution of the white population of the United States, 19982000. SOURCE: Data from Current Population Surveys, 19982000.
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From page 82... ...
Latinos have thus largely supplanted non-Hispanic whites and blacks as new labor force entrants and increasingly constitute large numbers of the school-age population. Figures 3-5, 3-6, and 3-7 show analogous population pyramids for three of the largest Latino national groups: Mexicans, Cubans, and Dominicans.
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From page 83... ...
85-90 80-84 1st 75-79 2nd 70-74 65-69 3rd 60-64 1st 55-59 50-54 2nd 45-49 3rd Age 40-44 35-39 30-34 25-29 20-24 15-19 10-14 5-9 0-4 -15.00 -10.00 -5.00 0.00 5.00 10.00 15.00 Percentage of Population FIGURE 3-6 Agesex composition of the Cuban-origin population by nativity, 19982002. SOURCE: Data from Current Population Surveys, 19982002.
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From page 84... ...
Also, this graph shows that the vast majority of Cuban origin persons over the age of 40 are immigrants, apparently the result of refugee immigration flows concentrated in the 1960s. Only 6 percent of all Cubans in the United States are third generation, and these tend to be in the youngest age categories.
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From page 85... ...
Now, the rapidly growing population of immigrant mothers has contributed to a 4The agesex pyramids for Dominicans, other Central Americans, and South Americans do not contain data on third-generation immigrants in the United States. The Current Population Survey contained only nativity data for the aggregated group of Central-South Americans.
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From page 86... ...
population will allow it to keep a relatively young age profile, in contrast to the aging populations of most industrialized countries. The age structures of the Latino populations also have implications for education, the labor force, health care, and the future of the social security system, as subsequent chapters show.
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From page 87... ...
California and Texas served as both ports of entry and areas of absorption for immigrants arriving from Mexico (and later Salvadorans and Guatemalans, the two largest Central American groups -- Hamilton and Stoltz Chinchilla, 2001; Massey et al., 1987, Menjivar, 2000)
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From page 88... ...
By contrast, in California and the border states, Mexicans continue to predominate, although a growing presence of Salvadorans and Guatemalans is increasingly evident, as are South Americans and even Caribbean migrants (Durand and Massey, 2003; Durand et al., 2000)
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From page 89... ...
The new geography of the Latino population in the United States of the past two decades cannot be generalized for all Latinos. While Mexicans, Central Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans have dispersed in the past two decades, other national groups have not.
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From page 90... ...
At the same time, the total population of Puerto Ricans in New York declined. Just under 8 of 10 (77 percent)
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From page 91... ...
In fact, many Latinos have become construction contractors themselves. Another example, also from the state of Georgia, is the revitalized carpet industry -- in the city of Dalton -- that hires only Latino migrants of Mexican and Central American origin, as Hernández-León and Zúńiga (2000)
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From page 92... ...
Thus, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Cubans follow the traditional path of regional concentration followed by dispersion for later generations, and this is especially true for Cubans. Foreign-born Cubans, despite having been in the United States for a relatively long time compared with other immigrant groups, registered a full 73.3 dissimilarity rate, indicating extremely high concentration of immigrants, perhaps because of an exceptionally success
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From page 93... ...
South Americans as a whole follow the traditional path of dispersion by generation, while generational differences for Central Americans are small, suggesting a pattern that is between the traditional immigrant-native settlement path and the new settlement path of the Mexicans. Thus, the increasing distribution of Hispanics, as a group, is driven mostly by the new geographical trends in settlement among Mexican and Central American immigrants.
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From page 94... ...
Latin American immigrant populations, which seem to be small today, may grow in size, depending on the expansion of networks and especially the relative opportunities between their countries and the United States. This is particularly true for South Americans, who constitute the majority of the Latin American population and are only beginning to participate in the immigration process to the United States.
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From page 95... ...
This does not seem to be a major issue for immigrants from Latin American countries. However, many of these second- and third-generation descendants of Latino immigrants may no longer identify as Latino or Hispanic, especially if their parents or grandparents include non-Latinos.
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From page 96... ...
Such demographic characteristics as population growth, concentration in young ages, significant rates of naturalization, and dispersion into new locales are important for understanding education, family life, labor force participation, voting, the criminal justice system, and health care. The changing geography of Latinos should also focus the attention of the public on their situation in places where they never existed before.
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From page 97... ...
Latin American Re search Review, 39(3)
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From page 98... ...
Working Pa pers on Latin America, Institute for Latin American and Iberian Studies, Columbia University. Smith-Nonini, S
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From page 99... ...
85-90 80-84 1st 75-79 2nd 70-74 65-69 1st 60-64 2nd 55-59 50-54 45-49 Age 40-44 35-39 30-34 25-29 20-24 15-19 10-14 5-9 0-4 -15.00 -10.00 -5.00 0.00 5.00 10.00 15.00 Percentage of Population FIGURE A3-2 Agesex composition of persons of South American origin by nativity, 19982000. SOURCE Data from Current Population Surveys, 19982002.
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