Changing Demography and Circumstances for Young Black Children in African and Caribbean Immigrant Families. A Project of the Migration Policy Institutes National Center on Immmigrant Integration Policy

摘要

Driven by increasing migration from Africa and sustained flows from the Caribbean, the number of Black immigrants in the United States has more than doubled over the past 20 years. As a result, the number of children with a Black foreign-born parent has also more than doubled during this period. Today about 813,000 children from birth to age 10 reside with a Black immigrant parent and together these children account for roughly 12 percent of all young Black children in the United States. This trend holds important implications for the US Black child population as well as the overall child population as both are becoming increasingly diverse in their origins, languages, and other characteristics. The majority of children of Black immigrants have parents who come from Africa and the Caribbean, but no single country accounts for more than one-fifth of this population. The diversity of Black immigrant origins makes it difficult to generalize about the well-being of children of Black immigrants, given that well-being indicators vary greatly by parental country of origin. That said, in general the children of Black immigrants fall in the middle of multiple well-being indicators with Asian and white children tending to fare better and Hispanic children and Black children of natives (i.e., African Americans) tending to fare worse. Black children with parents from Africa generally fare about as well as their counterparts with parents from the Caribbean and, in both cases, children of Black immigrants born in English-speaking countries with a long history of immigration to the United States for instance, Nigeria, Ghana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago tend to be the most advantaged. Children with parents from countries with shorter immigration histories, where English is not a common language, and with substantial refugee flows are likely to be more disadvantaged. Those with origins in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and wartorn African nations such as Sudan and Somali are most at risk on several key indicators.