Young Children in Black Immigrant Families Project
Young Children in Black Immigrant Families Project
The U.S. child population is rapidly changing and diversifying, in large part because of immigration. Today, nearly one in four U.S. children under age 18 is the child of an immigrant. While research has focused on the largest of these groups, far less academic attention has been paid to the changing Black child population, with the children of Black immigrants representing an increasing share of the U.S. Black child population. To address this important gap in knowledge, MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy conducted a project to examine the well-being and development of children in Black immigrant families in the first decade of life (birth to age 10). Core support for the project comes from the Foundation for Child Development.
This project produced research papers that examine the health, well-being, school readiness, and academic achievement of children in Black immigrant families, most with parents from Africa and the Caribbean.
The culminating work was used to produce a multidisciplinary volume that explores the migration and settlement experiences of Black immigrants to the United States, focusing on contextual factors such as family circumstances, parenting behaviors, social supports, and school climate that influence outcomes during early childhood and the elementary and middle-school years. Its findings hold important policy implications for education, health care, child care, early childhood development, immigrant integration, and refugee assistance.
Recent Activity
By Jie Zong and Jeanne Batalova
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By Lauren Rich , Julie Spielberger, and Angela Valdovinos D’Angelo
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By Danielle A. Crosby and Angel S. Dunbar
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By Lauren Rich , Julie Spielberger, and Angela Valdovinos D’Angelo
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By Danielle A. Crosby and Angel S. Dunbar
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By Randy Capps, Kristen McCabe, and Michael Fix
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From 1980 to 2013, the sub-Saharan African immigrant population in the United States increased from 130,000 to 1.5 million, roughly doubling each decade between 1980 and 2010. This profile provides up-to-date demographic information for sub-Saharan immigrants including location, educational attainment, workforce participation, and much more.
Recent Activity
Using a nationally representative U.S. birth-cohort study, this report examines levels of school readiness among young children by race/ethnicity and nativity. The authors identify the contextual factors — such as family circumstances, parenting practices, and enrollment in center-based child care — that encourage early school success.
This report draws on a six-year longitudinal study of Palm Beach County, FL, examining parenting, child care enrollment, and other factors that encourage early school success. The authors find kindergarten-age children of Black immigrants have significantly higher odds of being ready for school than children of Latina immigrant or Black U.S.-born mothers.
This report focuses on the development of children of Black immigrants in the United States, comparing against the outcomes for their peers in native-born and other immigrant families. It also compares these U.S. children to those in the United Kingdom, where there is a large Black immigrant population but a notably different policy context of reception.
This report analyzes prenatal behaviors and birth outcomes of Black immigrant mothers, and finds that Black immigrant mothers are less likely to give birth to preterm or low-birth-weight infants than U.S.-born Black women, but more likely to experience these birth outcomes than other immigrant and U.S.-born women.
African immigrants generally fare well on integration indicators, with college completion rates that greatly exceed those for most other immigrant groups and U.S. natives, this report finds. The United States, Canada, and Australia disproportionally attract better-educated African migrants then do the United Kingdom, France, and other European countries.
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