By 2025, 33% of USA Children will be Hispanic

WASHINGTON (By N.C. Aizenman, Washington Post) May 28, 2009 — A majority of Hispanic children are now the U.S.-born children of immigrants, primarily Mexicans who came to this country in an immigration wave that began around 1980, according to a report released today.

The analysis of Census data by the nonpartisan, Washington based Pew Hispanic Center charts a substantial demographic shift among the nation's 16 million Hispanic children, who is the fastest-growing child population in the United States and already account for more than one out of five U.S. children.

As recently as 1980, nearly six in 10 Hispanic
 children were in the third generation or higher, meaning that their parents, and often their grandparents and great-grandparents, were native-born U.S. citizens.

Only three in 10 were in the second generation — born in the United States to parents who immigrated.

Now those U.S.-born children of Hispanic immigrants account for 52 percent of all Hispanic children, according to the study.

The share of first-generation Hispanic children — meaning those who were born abroad and immigrated themselves — has remained almost unchanged, dropping from 13 percent to 11 percent since 1980.

The findings are particularly significant because by many measures second-generation Hispanic
 children face significant challenges compared to both their third-generation peers and non-Hispanic whites.

Forty percent have parents who have less than a high school education, compared with 16 percent of third-generation Hispanic children and 4 percent of non-Hispanic white children, according to the study.

Similarly, 21 percent of second-generation Hispanic children are not fluent in English, compared to 5 percent of third-generation Hispanic children. And 40 percent of second-generation Hispanic children have at least one parent who is in the country illegally.

However, the study found almost no difference between the poverty rates of the second and third generations, with about one in four such children living in poverty. And in a sign that assimilation doesn't always lead to social improvement, the second generation is more likely than the third to live in married-couple households: 73 percent compared to 52 percent.

The nation's 1.7 million first-generation immigrant Hispanic children, who are more likely to be in their early teens, tend to fare the worst: one-third live in poverty, 43 percent are not fluent in English, and nearly half were born to parents who never finished high school.

But although the total number of first-generation Hispanic children is likely to increase, study co-author Jeffrey S. Passel projected that their share of the total Hispanic child population will remain low in coming decades, as more second-generation Hispanics are born and today's second-generation Hispanic children start having children of their own, creating a third-generation boomlet.

By 2025, nearly one in three children in the United States will be Hispanic, according to Passel's projections.