Monday, November 3, 2014

Immigrant and Non-immigrant Welfare

In 2013, for the first time ever, the Foundation for Child Development, produced a report comparing the disparities in education, well being, and health of U.S. children of a number of racial/ethnic groups based on whether or not they had immigrant parents. The report, titled: Diverse Children: Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration in America’s New Non-Majority Generation, looked at eight different groups; White-non-immigrant parents, White-immigrant parents, Black-non-immigrant parents, Black-immigrant parents, Hispanic-non-immigrant parents, Hispanic-immigrant parents, Asian-non-immigrant parents, and Asian-immigrant parents.
The report specified the disparities in wellbeing between not only children of immigrant and non-immigrant parents, but also differences between children based on race and ethnicity. The report discovered that Hispanic children with immigrant parents were just as likely to live with an employed parent, and even more likely to live with two parents and be born healthier than their non-immigrant parent counterparts. In fact, all of the racial groups with immigrant parents were found to have the same, if not higher, rates of duo parenting, with at least one employed, and lower rates of child mortality than children with parents born in the U.S. The report did, however, reveal that children of immigrants were less likely to own health insurance as well as be enrolled in Pre-K programs. Of all the groups studied, Black and Hispanic children with U.S. born parents had the highest child mortality rates, the lowest median family income, and the least likelihood of having very good health.
Education proved to be the risk factor for every group. Each group scored low rates of literacy and math proficiency and low rates of Pre-K enrollment, regardless of the immigrant status of the children’s parents.
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It’s interesting to see the disparities in welfare of the diverse child population in the U.S. It’s even more interesting to see that these disparities exist not only in terms of immigrant status, as 89% of immigrants are U.S. citizens, but that they also exist through race and ethnicity. In an effort to improve the wellbeing of all U.S. children, immigrant and non-immigrant born, steps must be taken to improve early education, expand the coverage of health insurance, and provide economic opportunities for families of the future.

Hernandez, Donald J. "Race Ethnicity and Immigration Report." Foundation for Child Development. Hunter College & The Graduate Center, n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2014.

2 comments:

  1. This topic is interesting. It is necessary for us to focus on immigrants and non-immigrants' welfare, then we can see the existed unfairness. I think that maybe you can post more examples on welfare, the children education is a great example, maybe you can write more about their parents, like welfare in employment, welfare on social security, etc.

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  2. Very interesting post. I think this especially pertains to what we have been talking about recently in class, and with all the immigration ideas flooding the news recently. It will be interesting to see how both Obama and the republicans react to the immigration policies in the next few months, with the ideas above playing a large factor.

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