Journals > Journal: Immigrant Children > Article: Demography of Immigrant Youth: Past, Present, and Future
Journal Issue: Immigrant Children Volume 21 Number 1 Spring 2011
Data Sources and Terminology
Three principal sources provide the bulk of the data analyzed here on demographic characteristics of immigrant youth. A set of generational population projections provides prospective data for 2010–50 as well as retrospective data for 1960–2000.2 Data on characteristics of the current youth population are drawn from the March supplements to the Current Population Survey (CPS). Together with colleagues at the Urban Institute and the Pew Hispanic Center, I augmented these surveys in earlier work to classify immigrant respondents as legal or unauthorized and to adjust for omissions (see the technical appendix to this article).3 The Census Bureau's historical population estimates provide the annual data on population for 1900–2009. Finally, tabulations of decennial census data for 1900–60 from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) are the principal source for historical data on characteristics of the youth population.4
I define generations on the basis of nativity, citizenship, and nativity of parents. The foreign-born population (immigrants to the United States) is considered to be the first generation. The native population includes the second generation (U.S.-born with at least one immigrant parent)5 and the third and higher generations, generally referred to as the third generation (U.S.-born with two U.S.-born parents).6 Persons born in Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories are U.S. citizens at birth; they and their U.S.-born children are considered part of the third and higher generations.7
