About the Data
This feature was first published in February 2016 and has been regularly updated with new annual data from the American Community Survey.
With the exception of the first category, which maps children of immigrants as a share of all children, the maps display the share of children of immigrants who fall into a certain category. (For instance, the “Children’s language skills” tab maps the percentage of children of immigrants who are English proficient.) Trends for some small populations (e.g., local geographies) may be volatile because of small survey sample sizes, and differences between estimates derived from small sample sizes will often not be statistically significant. Estimates are not provided for indicators in areas with a small number of children sampled (i.e., where there are data on fewer than 90 children of immigrants included in the survey sample). When this is the case, the area appears as missing in the map and line chart for the applicable indicator and year. Because of small sample sizes, Native Americans are counted in the “another race or multiracial” category for these maps.
Further, estimates presented in this feature may differ from those in other publications by the Urban Institute or other organizations because of differences in analysis; for instance, estimates of health insurance coverage may differ from those produced by Urban’s Health Policy Center because of differences in how time frames, age groups, family relationships, and other factors are defined.
Note regarding the 2020 data: the Census Bureau did not release its standard one-year estimates for the 2020 American Community Survey because the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted data collection efforts. Instead, the bureau released experimental estimates that use a modified weighting procedure to help address data quality issues. The Census Bureau recommends against directly comparing 2020 data with other years. Also, because the experimental weighting procedure was designed primarily to produce experimental estimates for states, the bureau urges caution when interpreting substate (i.e., PUMA-based) estimates, which were the basis for our 2020 metro-area estimates.
Because of these 2020 data quality issues, estimates for 2021 reflect only 2021 American Community Survey data rather than two years of data (2020 and 2021), as is the case for other years.
For more information on the definitions and the sources of these statistics, see the children of immigrants data tool appendix.
Project Credits
This feature was funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation through the Low-Income Working Families Initiative. We thank them for their support but acknowledge that the findings and conclusions presented are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Foundation, the Urban Institute, or Urban's trustees. Funders do not determine research findings or the insights and recommendations of our experts. More information on our funding principles is available here. Read our terms of service here.
We would like to thank Victoria Lynch, Jennifer Haley, and Robin Wang in the Urban Institute’s Health Policy Center for providing edited health insurance coverage data and guidance on using and presenting these data to allow for more accurate coverage estimates.
Research
Cary Lou, Hamutal Bernstein, Erica Greenberg, Devlin Hanson, Gina Adams, and Karina Fortuny
Development and Design
Rachel Logan, Ben Chartoff, Alice Feng, Tim Meko, and Hannah Recht
Editing
Liza Hagerman, Serena Lei, Michael Marazzi, and Alexandra Tilsley