NEW YORK, December 9, 2022—A new report published today by the Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies (CLACLS) at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York (CUNY) shows that, although having increased smoothly during the first half of the decade, the proportion of new Latino immigrants in the city experienced a decline in 2017—about 30% of new immigrants in the 2016-2019 period were Latinos.
The report, titled “The Demographic and Socioeconomic Patterns of New Latino Immigrants in New York City in the 2010s,” examines these shifting dynamics in terms of race, ethnicity, sex, education, poverty, income, and insurance coverage rates.
Dominicans accounted for nearly half of new Latino immigrants, but this proportion decreased in later years to 42.6%. Ecuadorians and Colombians witnessed a slight increase (from 10.2% to 11.2% and 3.1% to 4.0% respectively), and Puerto Ricans almost doubled their share in the late 2010s (from 4.5% to 7.9%).
“The socioeconomic background of new Latino immigrants is very heterogeneous,” said Qiyao Pan, the author of the report. “Although immigration among Latinos has slowed down since 2017, we see it particularly among Puerto Ricans and Ecuadorians. Future research should further investigate the life-course of Latino subgroups to understand their disparities in education, income, and public health insurance coverage.”
Other key findings:
• Latinas were a higher proportion of new immigrants than Latinos, with a particularly high female immigration among Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Colombians. In contrast, among Mexicans and Ecuadorians, the immigration trend was driven by the male population.
• New Latino immigrants were also the youngest. About 25% of the male Latino immigrants were under the age of 17; the proportion was 22.3% among Latina immigrants.
• The proportion of the working-age population (18 to 64 years old) has decreased among all new immigrants. By the 2016-2019 period, 71% of Latinos were in this age compared to 78% by the early 2010s. Interestingly, the new Colombian immigrant population was the only group among all five largest Latino nationalities that experienced a reverse trend, increasing from 74.4% to 87.1%.
• Poverty rates among new Latino immigrants remained relatively stable at around 20%. Among them, Puerto Ricans had the highest poverty rates; Ecuadorians had the least.
• Public health insurance coverage rates decreased among new Latino immigrants, going from 50.8% to 41.8%.
• This report presents trends in poverty levels for the city of New York up to before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data from the moment of the pandemic was not available at the time of this analysis.
Contact Sebastián Villamizar-Santamaría, Director of Quantitative Research, for a PDF of the report at svillamizarsantamaria@gradcenter.cuny.edu.
About The Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies
The core mission of CLACLS is to actively support and advance the study of Latin America, the Caribbean, and Latinos in the U.S. in the doctoral programs of The Graduate Center, and to provide opportunities for Latino students at the Ph.D. level. CLACLS’s flagship program is the Latino Data Project, established in 2003 by Laird W. Bergad founding and current CLACLS director. Bergad is a distinguished professor in the Department of Latin American, Puerto Rican, and Latino Studies at Lehman College and with the Ph.D. Program in History at The Graduate Center. The Latino Data Project conducts detailed quantitative research on the Latino population of the United States and New York City metropolitan region, analyzing raw data files produced by the U.S. Census Bureau and other government agencies.
About The Graduate Center, CUNY
The Graduate Center of The City University of New York (CUNY) is a leader in public graduate education devoted to enhancing the public good through pioneering research, serious learning, and reasoned debate. The Graduate Center offers ambitious students more than 40 doctoral and master’s programs of the highest caliber, taught by top faculty from throughout CUNY — the nation’s largest public urban university. Through its nearly 40 centers, institutes, and initiatives, including its Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC), The Graduate Center influences public policy and discourse and shapes innovation. The Graduate Center’s extensive public programs make it a home for culture and conversation.
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