Immigrant Parents

Date of Article: April 2021​

In April 2021, the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) released a series of fact sheets on immigrant parents, highlighting the unique obstacles they face in supporting their children’s education while integrating into American communities.  They also posted cross tabulations for the 50 most populous counties in the US. The LAC reviewed the data for four New York City (NYC) counties including Bronx, Kings (Brooklyn), New York (Manhattan) and Queens and presents some key findings below.  The MPI research staff were also gracious enough to provide statistics for NYC as a whole and allowed us to compare borough statistics to the city as a whole. 
The data provided by MPI comes from the American Community Survey conducted by the US Census Department and is based on the 2014-2018 survey results.  The US and state fact sheets can be found at: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/immigrant-us-born-parents-young-children.  The link for the Excel files can also be found at the same URL. 
Some key findings of interest to the NYC adult literacy community include:

• More than half (55%) of parents in New York City were immigrants, with the highest percentage in Queens (67%) and the lowest percentage in Manhattan (42%).  Additional details can be found in Figure 1. 
• Most of the parents were between the ages of 35 and 54, something that was true in both the immigrant and US born populations.  See additional details in Figure 2. 
• The ethnic composition of immigrant parents varied widely across boroughs.  In the Bronx, Latinos accounted for a majority (67%) of the population while the largest group in Queens came from the Asian and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities.  The different boroughs also differ in how the ethnic composition of immigrant families aligned with those of the US born parents.  For example, in the Bronx, the ethnicities of immigrant parents aligned with those of their US born counterparts whereas in Manhattan, the majority of US born parents were white (58%) while white parents were only quarter of immigrants.  See Figure 3 for more details. 
• Nearly a quarter (23%) of immigrant parents over the age of 25 did not have a high school diploma while the same was true for less than a tenth (9%) of US born immigrants.  See Figures 4 and 5 for more details.  
• Over half of immigrant parents (52%) in NYC said they spoke English ‘less than very well’ and were defined as Limited English Proficient (LEP).  See Figure 6 for LEP percentages in the different boroughs. 
• Despite the obstacles presented by lack of English proficiency and lower educational attainment levels, immigrant parents were employed at roughly the same levels (74%) as US born parents (75%).  See Figure 7 for more details. 
• Immigrant families were nearly twice as likely (30%) as US born parents (17%) to be working poor and have household incomes that were less than 200% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL).  See Figure 8 for more details.