Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area:
Trends and Characteristics
a research report for
The C. E. & S. Foundation
by
Alexei Izyumov
Assistant Professor of Economics, and
Fifth Third Bank Research Fellow in Entrepeneurship
and
Paul Coomes
Professor of Economics, and
National City Research Fellow
Babu Nahata
Professor of Economics
with assistance from
Barry Kornstein
Senior Research Analyst
Raj Narang
Research Associate
Michael Price
Kentucky State Demographer
Sofia Alterman
Research Associate
University of Louisville
June 2001
CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................ 1
I. IMMIGRATION TO THE LOUISVILLE METRO AREA IN THE
CONTEXT OF RECENT NATIONAL TRENDS .................................................... 5
1.1 Immigration to the United States: recent developments ....................................................... 5
1.2 Immigration to Kentucky ........................................................................................................... 6
1.3 Immigrant population and recent flows to Louisville ............................................................ 9
II. THE NATIONAL ORIGIN OF LOUISVILLE’S IMMIGRANT
COMMUNITY ............................................................................................................ 15
2.1 The situation at the beginning of the 1990s ......................................................................... 15
2.2 The new immigration, and the impact of refugees .............................................................. 17
III. LEGAL CATEGORIES OF IMMIGRANTS TO LOUISVILLE ....................... 23
3.1.Legal categories of immigrants ............................................................................................... 23
3.2.Legal categories of new immigrants to Louisville .............................................................. 24
3.3 Legal categories of new immigrants by national origin ....................................................... 28
IV. DECLARED OCCUPATIONS OF IMMIGRANTS TO LOUISVILLE ............ 31
4.1 The occupational structure of Louisville’s immgrantion .................................................... 31
4.2 The occupational structure and national origin of immigrants ......................................... 35
4.3 Distribution of occupations by legal category of admission ............................................. 36
4.4 The age structure of immigrants to Louisville...................................................................... 38
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................ 39
APPENDICES
A. TERMINOLOGY AND DEFINITIONS ............................................................. 41
B. NET INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC MIGRATION TO
STATES, 1990-99 .................................................................................. 43
C. ESTIMATES OF THE CURRENT SIZE OF LOUISVILLE’S
FOREIGN-BORN COMMUNITY .................................................... 44
D. EXPLANATION OF COVER MAP: SETTLEMENT PATTERNS
BY ZIP CODE OF IMMIGRANTS TO THE LOUISVILLE
MSA DURING THE 1990s .................................................................. 45
E. THE FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES,
BUREAU OF THE CENSUS REPORT, 2001 .................................... 47
Executive Summary
T
he C.E. & S. Foundation has engaged economists
at the University of Louisville to learn what causes
immigrants to choose certain locations over others in the United States, to study immigration in the Louisville metro area and to help find ways to attract more
immigrant talent to the city. Our first report presented a
review of relevant economic and social aspects of immigration, including its costs and benefits, as reflected in
the existing literature.
This report summarizes the second phase of our research
– an analysis of the detailed statistics on immigration
flows into Greater Louisville over the past decade. In the
third phase, using the research findings of the first and
second stages of our study we will provide recommendations to help local leaders improve the quantity and
quality of immigrant flow to the Louisville area.
In this report we use the most detailed and current data
available on legal immigration—the records of the US
Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS). In contrast to Census Bureau statistics, which is based on
samples of the foreign-born population, INS records take
account of every individual immigrant coming to the US.
These records also indicate a state and a zip code where
a new immigrant is registered in the US, allowing precise
estimates of initial settlement patterns of immigrants.
The INS records contain information on some of the
most important characteristics of new immigrants, including their country of birth, age, occupation and legal
status upon entry to the US. In contrast to the Bureau of
Census statistics INS data clearly distinguishes “core” immigrants from other foreign-born, such as students, longterm visitors, tourists and the like.
To evaluate the recent immigration experience of Louisville we have acquired from the US government the extensive database of INS statistics covering the period of
1990-98 and containing close to 7 million individual immigrant records. The database was reorganized to provide key information for immigrants settling into each
of almost 300 US Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA)
including Greater Louisville. Specifically we focused on
such characteristics of immigration as overall growth,
changes in national origin, legal categories of admission,
and professional occupations. Wherever possible we compared characteristics of Louisville’s immigrants to those
of 14 peer cities, Kentucky, and the US.
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
The report is organized into four sections and several
appendices. The first section deals with the dynamics of
immigration in the 1990s in Louisville, as compared to
the situation in the United States, in the state of Kentucky and in the group of comparable cities. The second
section addresses the national origin of Louisville’s immigrants, including these who resided here at the beginning of the 1990s and those who came more recently. In
the third section, we examine the 1990s immigrant flow
to Louisville from the standpoint of legal categories of
immigrant admission. That is, we investigate the main
paths leading immigrants to Louisville, such as a job offer, or a marriage to a US resident. The fourth section
deals with occupations of new immigrants and their potential for the local labor market. Appendix A is a glossary of terminology used in the immigration literature.
Appendices B, C, and D provide some additional information and statistics on immigration.
The most important findings from our study of recent
immigration in Louisville include:
Ö During the decade of the 1990s the inflow of immi-
grants to Louisville was rapid, which helped to reduce the gap with the rest of the nation. Until 1990
Louisville was a typical inland low-immigrant city with
a foreign-born population of just 12,000 or 1.3 percent of the total. In 1990-98, net international migration to the metro area added 7,073 foreign-born
residents. Assuming that registered net inflow of
immigrants reflects their longer-term settlement patterns, between 1990 and 1998 the foreign-born population of Greater Louisville increased by about 60
percent. This was a much faster growth than for the
US foreign-born population as a whole (35 percent)
and faster than in 12 of the 14 comparable metro
areas.
Ö In terms of the share of immigrants in the total
population the gap between Louisville and the rest
of the US remains substantial. Even if our higher
estimate is correct, the current number of foreignborn in Louisville is less than 50,000 and their share
in metro’s population is still below 5 percent, onehalf the national average. In the 1990s Louisville was
rapidly catching up with the rest of the US, but starting from a very low base.
1
Ö The rapid growth of immigration to the Louisville
metro contributed to a noticeable increase in foreign-born persons in the state of Kentucky. Between
1990 and 2000 the foreign-born population of Kentucky has almost tripled, increasing to 97 thousand
people, or 2.5 percent of the total population. Kentucky ranked third among all states by the rate of
growth of its immigrant population in the 1990s. By
this indicator Kentucky (+185 percent) was behind
only Alabama and North Carolina, but well ahead
of traditional immigrant states of Texas (+60 percent), California (+33 percent) or New York (+25
percent). These numbers are particularly impressive
if one recalls that in the previous decade, that is between 1980 and 1990, the foreign-born population
of Kentucky did not increase at all.
Ö During the 1990s, the national composition of
Louisville’s immigration was dominated by one
group, Vietnamese, which alone was responsible for
24 percent of the total inflow. Vietnam was followed
by two other Asian nations—India (5.4 percent) and
China (5.2 percent). Together these three countries
were responsible for more than one-third of the total inflow of new immigrants. The other countries
in the top twelve group were: Cuba, Canada, Bosnia,
Ukraine, Philippines, United Kingdom, Korea,
Mexico and Russia. By contrast, for the US as a whole
the largest immigrant group was Mexicans. In 1990s
they comprised 31.3 percent of all new immigrants
to the US with another 22.7 percent of immigrants
coming from other Latin American and Caribbean
countries.
On the other hand, in contrast to the national trend,
a relatively low proportion of immigrants to
Louisville (one third vs. two thirds) came via familyreunification channels. The share of Louisville’s immigrants coming via employment sponsorship is not
much different from the national average (about 15
percent), but is markedly lower compared to
Louisville’s main competitor cities, such as Cincinnati
and Indianapolis.
Ö The occupational structure of Louisville’s immigra-
tion is less favorable than in most of its key competitor cities. In the course of the 1990s Louisville
attracted 958 immigrants with professions requiring
formal education. This was half of that in Cincinnati
and Indianapolis and 1.5 times less than in Nashville. In terms of percentage of such specialists in
the total inflow of immigrants (13.5 percent),
Louisville found itself in the middle of the peer
group, but still behind Cincinnati (20.7 percent),
Indianapolis (19.7 percent), Birmingham (19.6 percent) and Dayton (18.5 percent).
Ö Occupations of Louisville’s immigrants closely cor-
relate to their national origin and legal status. Some
countries consistently supplied the city with highly
trained professionals, others mostly provided service workers, artisans and blue collar workers. The
majority of the more skilled immigrants came to
Louisville from India, China, Canada, United Kingdom, and Russia. Most of the less skilled immigrants
came from Vietnam, Cuba, Bosnia, Ukraine and
Mexico.
Ö Based on our estimates, the 1990s immigration into Ö Louisville’s non-immigrant population of students
Louisville has increased the national diversity of the
immigrant community in the metro area, as measured
by the share of immigrants not belonging to the top
four countries of origin. This indicator rose from
66 to 70 percent between 1990 and 1998. Characteristically, for the US as a whole the trend in the nineties was in the opposite direction, as the share of
immigrants who came to the US from countries other
than the top four decreased from 66 to 60 percent.
Ö The structure of Louisville’s immigration by legal
categories of admission is very different from the
national situation and is dominated by refugees. Of
all new legal immigrants who came to Louisville in
1990-98 almost one-third (31.4 percent) came via
refugee channels. This is more than twice as large as
the share nationally (14.6 percent). By this indicator
Louisville is also the leader among its 15 peer cities.
2
and professional visa holders can only be estimated
approximately. In the 2000/2001 academic year the
University of Louisville had 720 international students and 150 foreign-born researchers. Combined
with other metro area universities the population of
foreign students and researchers in Greater Louisville
area is probably close to 1,500. Professional longterm visa holders, such as engineers, computer specialists, health-care professionals push the total population of non-immigrant foreign-born residents of
Louisville to between 2,500 and 3,000.
Ö The total number of foreign-born presently
residing in the Louisville metro area, including legal
immigrants of all types, students, temporary
workers and undocumented immigrants, by our
estimate, is presently between 30 and 45 thousand.
For the total metro area population of Louisville
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
of just over 1 million (1,026 thousand as of 2000)
these estimates translate to 3.0-4.5 percent of the
population. More precise estimates will be possible
to make when the results of the US 2000 Census
of Population become available. If current growth
in immigration to the metro continues at the same
rate, one should expect Louisville’s foreign-born
population to double, reaching 80-100 thousand
persons by the year 2010.
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
3
4
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
I. Immigration to the Louisville Metro Area in the Context of
Recent National Trends
A
ccording to the preliminary results of the 2000
Census of Population the number of foreignborn Americans is estimated at 28.4 million
people, or 10.4 percent of the total population of the
United States. That compares to 4.7 percent of the population in 1970 and means that one out of ten US residents is now an immigrant. If we include the children of
the foreign-born, then one out of five Americans is either an immigrant or part of the first generation immigrant family. In this chapter we describe the trends by
nation of origin and destination of immigrants.
On an annual basis, immigrant inflow into the US has
grown from 300,000 a year in the 1960s to nearly 1.2
million at the end of 1990s, of which an estimated 200,000
to 300,000, or 15 to 20 percent, are undocumented or
illegal immigrants.
Census surveys do not verify the legal status of members of the foreign-born population. While most of the
foreign-born are US citizens or holders of permanent
residency permits (‘green cards’) the 28.4 million foreign
born residents also includes an estimated 5 million illegal
immigrants and approximately 600,000 foreigners residing in the US temporarily, such as students and holders
of working visas. (Center for Immigration Studies, 2001.)
While helping to maintain a healthy demographic situation and providing a strong supply of labor and talent
for a growing economy, the massive inflow of the new
immigrants has also createed major problems for the US.
Since 1965, when the foundation of US immigration
policy switched from country-based quotas to a familyunification principle, an increasing proportion of immigrants have been coming from the relatively poor countries of Latin America and Asia. Many of these immigrants have little education or professional training and
weak English language skills. The immigrants of the first
great migration wave a century ago had these disadvantages as well. However, modern immigrants to the US
can now rely on the public welfare and education systems. Many quickly become a burden to the federal, state
and local welfare programs (see Attracting Immigrants
to an Urban Area, 2000).
Most of the growth in US immigration has occured during the last 30 years. Between 1970 and 2000 the immigrant population of the US tripled. From a level of about
9.5 million foreign born residents, the immigrant population increased by 4.5 million during the 1970s, by 5.7
million during the 1980s, and by 8.6 million during the
1990s. The massive inflow of immigrants in these past
three decades has prompted some observers to speak of
the “Second Great Migration,” comparable in its scale
and impact to the immigrant wave of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. (Borjas, 1999.)
According to the 2001 report of the Center for Immigration Studies, the welfare usage rate among immigrants
is 30 to 50 percent higher than for native-born citizens.
The poverty rate among immigrants is 50 percent higher,
and one-third of immigrants do not have health insurance. About 30 percent of immigrants have no high
school diploma, as opposed to 10 percent for natives.
Children of immigrant parents, some of them illegal,
accounted for almost all of the net increase in public
school enrollment in the US from 1980 to 2000. (Center
for Immigration Studies, 2001)
1. Immigration to the United States: Recent
Developments
Immigration is now the dominant factor
in US population growth. Between 1990
and 2000 new immigrants and their children comprised 50.4 percent of the total
increase in the US population. If children
born in this decade to pre-1990 immigrants
are also included, the immigrant-generated
share of US population growth is almost
70 percent. (Center for Immigration Studies, 2001.)
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Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
5
Largely due to the family-based nature of immigrant admission policy, immigrant inflow into the US is becoming increasingly concentrated in terms of the countries
of national origin. The composition of the foreign-born
has changed dramatically in the last few decades. In 1970
immigrants of European origin comprised 60 percent
of the total. By 1990 their share shrunk to 15 percent. In
contrast, the number of immigrants from Mexico, South
America and Asia have increased dramatically. From 1990
to 1999 Mexican immigrants comprised 31.3 percent of
all new immigrants to the US. Immigrants from South
America and the Caribbean made up another 22.7 percent and 23.4 percent of immigrants were from Asia.
Immigrants from these regions made up 77 percent of
all immigrants who came during the 1990s. Immigrants
from these regions made up 73.6 percent of all the foreign born living in the US by the year 2000, with Mexican-born immigrants alone numbering 7.9 million, or 27.2
percent of the total. (Center for Immigration Studies,
2001.)
Modern immigration continues to be an urban phenomenon. By 2000, 53 percent of all the foreign-born resided in just six metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) —
the so called “gateway cities” Los Angeles, New York,
Miami, San Francisco, Chicago and Washington-Baltimore, which contain just 23.1 percent of the US population. Two-thirds of all 1990s immigrants settled in the
ten largest metro areas, which contain only 30 percent of
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the US Population. (Frey and DeVol, 2000.) There is no
doubt that immigrants are bringing diversity and talent
to these cities. However, the massive inflow in the 1990s
contributed to a significant outflow of native-born white
and black Americans to other destinations. For example,
in the 1990-98 period, New York gained 1.3 million immigrants but lost 1.7 million in net domestic migration,
and Los Angeles gained 1.1 million immigrants, but lost
1.5 million in net domestic migration. In fact, of the ten
cities that were the most popular destinations for immigrants in 1990s, eight lost more people to domestic migration than they gained in terms of immigration. (see
Table 1.3.)
In contrast, immigration to most in-land cities, particularly those in the Mid-West and North, is much less intensive. These inland cities have attracted some of the
native-born Americans who are leaving high-immigrant
urban areas. In particular, inland cities with good climates
and living conditions have attracted large numbers of
native-born migrants of retirement and pre-retirement
age. Observing these conflicting trends, some demographers have started to speak about an emerging division
of the US into vibrant fast-growing “melting pot” regions centered in the South and Southwest and the stagnant baby-boom retiree dominated “heartland.” (Frey and
DeVol, 2000.)
While it is still too early to conclude whether this characterization is valid, one thing is certain: massive immigration brings both major costs and major benefits. Even
more importantly, for any individual state or city there is
a trade-off of costs and benefits resulting from having
either too much or too little immigration.
1.2 Immigration to Kentucky
In the course of the last decade the foreign-born population of Kentucky has almost tripled. Between the 1990
and 2000 the number of immigrants rose from 34,000 to
97,000 people. Kentucky ranked third among all states in
terms of the rate of growth of its immigrant population
(185 percent), behind only Alabama and North Carolina
but well ahead of traditional immigrant states such as
Texas (60 percent), California (33 percent) or New York
(25 percent). (See Table 1.4.) These numbers are particularly impressive considering that between 1980 and 1990
the foreign-born population of Kentucky did not increase
at all. In recent years the foreign-born population has
been growing, on net, by about two thousand people a
year. This compares to net annual domestic migration to
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
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the state of about seven thousand people. In 1990, the
foreign-born comprised about 1 percent of the total
population of the state. According to the 2000 Census
Bureau estimate, this share has increased to 2.5 percent
(see Table 1.4).
However, the recent explosive growth of immigration in
Kentucky needs to be viewed in perspective, as it started
from a very low level. Even after the 1990s inflow Kentucky remains a low-immigrant state. In terms of the
share of foreign-born residents in the total population,
Kentucky ranks only 37th among the 50 states and the
District of Columbia (see Table 1.4). Kentucky’s inland
position, relatively low level of personal income and slow
growth make it less inviting for potential immigrants compared to “gateway states” on the East and West coast
and along the Mexican border in the South. Even though
the share of the foreign-born in the total population of
the state increased during the 1990s from 1 percent to
2.5 percent, it is still just one quarter the national value
of 10.4 percent. Put differently, as of 2000 just one out
of 40 Kentuckians was a foreign-born person compared
to one out of ten for the US as a whole.
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
Compared to the total population of the
state the new immigration to Kentucky
continues to be fairly insignificant. As a percentage of the state population, all of the
new immigrant inflow for 1990-99 amounts
to just 0.4 percent, compared to 0.8 percent in Oklahoma, 1.6 percent in Colorado,
3.5 percent in Texas and 6.7 percent in
California, for example. By this indicator,
Kentucky finds itself ranking near the bottom of the states (at 45th) - see Appendix
B.
Settlement patterns of immigrants to
Kentucky largely follow the national trend
with most new immigrants going to urban
areas. Thus, according to the Census
Bureau, in the 1990s over half of the new
immigrants settled in just two counties —
Jefferson (Louisville) and Fayette
(Lexington).
Until the 1990s, the ethnic composition of
Kentucky immigration was relatively stable
and was dominated by European immigrants, with immigrants from Germany and
the United Kingdom being responsible for
over 20 percent of the total foreign-born
population (see Table 1.5).
In the 1990s the composition of new immigrant flows
to Kentucky was quite different, dominated now by immigrants and refugees from Asia and Eastern Europe
(see Figure 1.1.)
The share of Kentucky’s immigrant population that had
become naturalized US citizens by 1997 was estimated
to be about one third, close to the national average (FAIR,
2001).
In addition to permanent immigrants, the population of
foreign-born residents in Kentucky includes visitors such
as foreign students and people on other temporary visas.
According to the 1999/00 annual report of the Institute
for International Education (IIE), 4,201 foreign students
attended post-secondary schools in Kentucky. The campuses with the greatest concentrations of foreign students were: University of Kentucky in Lexington (1,500),
University of Louisville (636), and Murray State University (423) (FAIR, 2001). In the 2000-2001 academic year,
7
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Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
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the University of Louisville had 720 international students and over 100 foreign-born faculty and researchers.
See Appendix C.
Kentucky’s population of undocumented immigrants, or illegal resident aliens, has been estimated by the INS at 6,000
(as of end of 1996). This represented a 30 percent increase over its estimate of the illegal alien population in
October, 1992, but most likely their true number is higher.
On average, for the US as a whole the estimated ratio of
illegal to legal immigrants is about 1:6. Applying this ratio to Kentucky, the number of undocumented immigrants in the state is likely to be at least 15,000. Some
estimates indicate that up to 90 percent of agricultural
workers in Kentucky are illegal immigrants (Lexington
Herald-Leader, June 16, 1998).
1.3 Immigration Population and Recent
Flows to Louisville
Despite, attracting a relatively large part (about one-third)
of the total immigrant inflow to Kentucky, until recently
Louisville was a typical inland low-immigrant city. Between 1980 and 1990 the city’s immigrant population grew
slowly. Thus, in 1980 the foreign-born population of the
Louisville metropolitan statistical area (MSA) numbered
9,950, or just 1.1 percent of the total population. By 1990
the foreign-born population of the Louisville MSA had
increased by about 2,000 people — to 12,016 — and
comprised 1.3 percent of the total population. This was
a much lower share than for the US as a whole (8.6 percent), and lower than in almost all of the metropolitan
areas to which Louisville compares itself. Of these peer
cities, only Birmingham, AL, had a lower percentage of
foreign-born in its population (see Figure 1.2).
In the 1990s, however, the inflow of immigrants to Louisville increased much faster than in the 1980s. According to INS data, in the last decade net international migration to the metro area added 7,073 new foreign-born
residents, with Jefferson County alone absorbing 6,200.
In comparison, the Lexington MSA received only 3,300
new immigrants and the state of Kentucky as a whole
about 16,000 in this period.
Assuming that the registered net inflow of immigrants
reflects their longer-term settlement patterns, we estimate that between 1990 and 1998 the foreign-born population of greater Louisville increased by about 60 per-
Figure 1.1
National Origin of Foreign-Born Residents of Kentucky, 1990,
and National Origin of New Immigrants, 1991-1998
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8.
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
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cent. This is impressive growth — much faster than for
the US foreign-born population as a whole (35 percent).
Only two of 14 peer metros — Nashville and Greensboro — experienced slightly faster growth in their immigrant communities (67 percent). In comparison, the immigrant populations of the Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Indianapolis metro areas grew by 42 percent, 47 percent,
and 50 percent, respectively, from 1990 to 1998 (see Figures 1.3 and 1.4).
Another way of looking at immigrant population growth
in Louisville during the 1990s is to compare it to the
overall growth of the metro population. By this indicator Louisville also compares favorably to its peers. During 1990-98 new immigrant inflow comprised 14.2 percent of the total population growth of the Louisville
MSA. This is a higher percentage than that experienced
by 12 of the 14 peer metros, and lower only than that of
St. Louis and Dayton (see Figure 1.5). However, by this
measure Louisville is still far below the national average
of 32.3 percent. In other words, nationally immigrant
arrivals represented about one-third of the increase in
10
population during the 1990s, but in Louisville they were
responsible for only about one-sixth of the population
growth.
The contrast between Louisville’s leadership in the rate
of growth in its immigrant population and the relatively
small role of immigration in the overall growth of the
metro’s population is explained, of course, by the small
size of its foreign-born community back in 1990. Put
differently, in the 1990s Louisville was rapidly catching
up with the rest of the US in terms of the relative size of
its immigrant community, but it was doing so from a very
low initial base.
It is difficult to provide a precise estimate for the stock
of foreign-born people residing in greater Louisville at
the present time. While the immigrant flow statistics of
the INS provide the most precise account of new immigrants coming to the US via legal channels, the data have
their limitations. At the metro area level, the INS does
not offer publicly available data on non-immigrant categories of foreign-born residents, such as students and
professional visa holders. For obvious reasons, it also gives
no account of undocumented immigrants. INS data, imImmigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
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Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
11
portantly, does not follow demographic changes and secondary migration of foreign-born people to and from a
metro in question. The latter statistic is tracked by the
Bureau of the Census, but reliable data on a metro area
level appear only once every ten years following the decennial Census of Population. Due to these reasons, the
number of foreign-born people presently residing in the
Louisville MSA can only be tentatively estimated. By our
calculations, including students, foreign-born temporary
workers, and undocumented immigrants, as of the spring
of 2001 the foreign-born population of the Louisville
metro area should be between 25 and 45 thousand, or
between 2.5 and 4.5 percent of the total metro population. See Appendix C for a discussion. More precise estimates will be possible when the results of the 2000 Census of Population become available in approximately a
year.
To conclude, over the decade of the 1990s, thanks to a
rapid inflow of immigrants Louisville has significantly
reduced the gap between it and the rest of the nation in
terms of the percentage of foreign-born residents in its
population. Yet this gap still remains substantial because
the catching-up process began from a very low initial base.
Even if our higher estimate is correct, the share of foreign-born in the metro’s population is less than 5 percent, which is half the national average.
12
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
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Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
13
14
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
II. The National Origin of Louisville’s Immigrant Community
I
n discussing the national composition of the immigrant population of Louisville there are three main
questions of interest. First, what was the situation in
Louisville at the start of the “immigration decade” of
the 1990s? Second, how much if, at all, did the national
mix of Louisville’s immigrant community change in the
course of the 1990s? And third, what are the national
origins of immigrants now residing in Louisville? Which
countries are over- and under-represented compared to
Louisville’s peer metro areas and the US national averages? This chapter addresses each of these questions.
2.1 The situation at the beginning of the
1990s
in Louisville matches, for example, that of the US as a
whole. Thus, a coefficient of -1 would mean that the
ranking of immigrant groups in Louisville, from the largest to the smallest, is the opposite to that of the US, with
the largest ethnic group in Louisville being the smallest
in the nation, and vise versa. A rank correlation coefficient of +1, on the contrary, would mean that the ranking of immigrant groups in Louisville is the same as for
the US as a whole.
The computation of rank correlation coefficients
confirms the visual impression of the figures on the next
page. The correlation coefficients between the national
mix of immigrants residing in Louisville and the US as
a whole is 0.10 which indicates significant disparity. On
the other hand, the coefficient between Louisville and its
14 peer cities is much higher, 0.76. In other words, the
composition of Louisville’s immigrant population at the
start of the 1990s was fairly typical for the Midwestern
and Southeastern metros in the comparison group, but
quite different from the national situation. This should
Table 2.1 and Figure 2.1 describes the composition of
the Louisville MSA’s foreign-born population as of the
1990 Census of Population. The three largest countries
of origin of foreign-born residents at that time were
Germany, United Kingdom and Vietnam. Together, they were responsible
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The composition of Louisville’s foreign-born population was also different from that of fourteen comparable
metropolitan areas. However, in this
case there was more similarity (see
Figure 2.3). In order to provide a
more precise measure of comparison
of the ethnic composition of
Louisville’s immigrant population to
that of the peer cities and the country as a whole, we have computed the
Spearman rank correlation coefficients between the countries of origin of their foreign-born residents.
Taking values between -1 and +1, this
coefficient is an indicator of how
close a ranking of immigrant groups
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Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
15
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Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
not be a surprise considering that nationally the composition of the immigrant population is largely defined by
the “immigrant magnet” cities of the East and West coasts
and Mexican migration in the southern United States.
2.2 The New Immigration and The Impact of
Refugees
As was stated in chapter I, Louisville’s foreign-born population grew rather quickly in the 1990s. From 1990 to
1998 7,073 legal immigrants settled initially in Louisville
from abroad. Leaving aside domestic in- and out-migration of foreign-born individuals, this constitutes an increase of about 60 percent over the pre-existing immigrant population of 12,016. From which countries did
these immigrants come to Louisville? How did their arrival change the overall composition of the metro’s immigrant population? Are there any discernable trends in
the new immigrant inflow to the metro?
The dynamics of the ethnic composition of the immigration inflow to Louisville during 1990-98 is represented
by the stack chart showing the actual numbers of immigrants from each country, arriving to the metro area in
each year (see Figure 2.4).
The figure illuminates several aspects of immigration to
Louisville during the 1990s. While most of the featured
immigrant groups show relatively little year-to-year variation in the number of incoming immigrants, others show
very significant fluctuations. One can see that Vietnamese immigration to the city peaked during 1991-93 at the
level of 200-300 a year, but has subsided since then to a
level of 100-150 persons per year. Immigration from
Bosnia, practically non-existent before 1994, became substantial in 1996-97 but has decreased more recently. Similarly, immigration from Cuba only started in 1996 but
quickly escalated in 1997 and 1998, from 100 to over 200
persons per year. Clearly, this clustering of immigrants
from Vietnam, Cuba, and Bosnia is due to the massive
inflows of refugees from these countries (see Chapter
III for a discussion of refugees and other legal categories of immigration to the Louisville metro area).
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Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
17
Figures 2.5 and 2.6 provide additional information on
the national origins of the immigrants who arrived in
Louisville during the 1990s. Both figures indicate that
1990s immigration to Louisville was clearly dominated
by one group — Vietnamese, who were responsible for
24 percent of the total inflow (1,685 people out of 7,073).
Vietnam is followed by two other Asian nations — India
(385 people, or 5.4 percent) and China (366 people, or
5.2 percent). Together, these three countries of origin
are responsible for more than one-third of the total inflow of new immigrants to the Louisville
metro area.
Comparing the composition of new immigrants to the metro to the composition of
the Louisville foreign-born community as
of 1990, one can see significant differences
(see Figure 2.1). Neither Germany, nor the
UK, who were the #1 and #2 countries of
origin of the 1990 immigrant population
are among the top eight countries for the
newer immigrants. While in 1990 UK-born
residents comprised 8.2 percent of the
metro’s immigrant population, during 199098 they made up only 2.8 percent of the
new immigrant flow. German-born immigrants were 12.8 percent of the 1990 foreign-born population, but less than 2 percent of the new immigrants of the 1990s.
Besides the rapid growth of immigration from Asia, another trend is an increase in the role of immigrants from
Latin American countries (especially Cuba and Mexico)
and Eastern Europe.
In 1990, none of the Spanish-speaking immigrants ranked
among the top 12 countries of origin. But among more
recent immigrants, Cuba and Mexico provided 7.2 percent of the total inflow between them. (This figure would
be much higher if new undocumented immigrants were
included.) In 1990, East European immigrants were rep)LJXUH
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Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
resented by only the Soviet Union, with 3 percent
of the total, among the top twelve countries of
origin. Among immigrants arriving during 199098, Russians (2.3 percent) and Ukrainians (3.2
percent) were joined by Bosnians (4.1 percent),
and together the three countries provided 9.6 percent of the total inflow of new settlers.
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The rank correlation coefficient between the national origins of the stock of Louisville’s foreignborn residents in 1990 and the 1990-98 immigrant
inflow to Louisville was just 0.35. This indicates
that the face of Louisville’s immigrant population
is changing rather quickly, with newer immigrants
having relatively weak links with the ones already
living here at the start of the decade.
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This conclusion is further confirmed by countryby-country analysis of “old” and “new” immigration. The data shown in Table 2.2 indicate that
among the immigrant communities residing in
Louisville in 1990, two — Cuba and Vietnam —
experienced by far the largest percentage increaase.
The number of new immigrants coming from
Cuba in the 1990s was 264 percent of the size of 7RWDO)RUHLJQ%RUQ,PPLJUDQWV
the 1990 Cuban community, while for Vietnamese this ratio was 208.5 percent. The 1990s immigration created an entirely new community of
Bosnian immigrants, which had been practically non-existent in 1990. New inflow of immigrants from the former
USSR (Ukraine and Russia), Mexico, and China were of
similar sizes as the numbers of
their respective communities
in 1990.
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In contrast, immigration from
other countries was growing at
a slower rate than the overall
average of 58.9 percent. Immigration from Western Europe was the least significant
during the 1990s. New immigrants from Italy amounted to
just 5.9 percent of the existing Italian-born community.
And new immigrants from
Germany and the UK
amounted to just 8.4 and 20.3
percent of their existing communities, respectively. Immigration was also relatively low
from Japan and Korea —
about 25 percent of the size
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of their respective 1990 communities. Canada and the
Philippines added somewhat more new immigrants (4045 percent), while immigration from India and Iran ran
at close to the average for all immigrants (56-59 percent).
The relative intensity of new immigrant flows from various countries can also be measured in terms of average
annual inflow of immigrants coming from each country.
Figure 2.7 shows this data for the 1990-98 period for the
top dozen countries of birth of the immigrants. The leading birth countries of Louisville’s recent immigrants can
be classified into three groups. The absolute leader in
terms of size of the annual inflow is, of course, Vietnam. Of the total annual inflow of immigrants of nearly
800 persons, Vietnam alone was providing almost 200.
The next group of countries, which provided on average
about 30-40 immigrants a year, includes India, China,
Cuba, Canada and Bosnia. The third group, including the
Philippines, UK, Korea, Mexico and Russia provided
about 20-25 people per year.
Another way of examining the national origin of the new
immigrant flow into the Louisville metro area is to compare it to the national origins of all new immigrants to
the United States and to Louisville’s 14 peer metros.
Table 2.3 contains this information. The table indicates
that the national mix of new immigrants to Louisville
was somewhat similar to that of its peer metros in the
Midwestern and Southeastern states, but quite different
20
from the overall national picture. The rank correlation
of national origins was 0.77 between Louisville and the
14 peer metros, but just 0.31 between Louisville and the
US. Much of the difference between Louisville and the
US is explained by the large percentage of immigrants
from Vietnam, Cuba and Eastern Europe coming to
Louisville as opposed to the large share of immigrants
from Mexico and the Caribbean region (Jamaica, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic) arriving in other cities in the US.
Interestingly, the composition of new immigrants to
Louisville is also different from new immigrants coming
to the state of Kentucky. In 1990 the national composition of Louisville’s immigrant population was similar to
that Kentucky in general, reflected by a relatively high
rank correlation coefficient value of 0.84. However, over
the course of the 1990s, the composition of immigrant
flows to Louisville deviated from that of the statewide
pattern. The rank correlation coefficient between the national composition of immigrant flows to Louisville and
to Kentucky for 1990-98 is 0.65. In other words, the national composition of Louisville’s immigration has been
less similar to that of immigration to the state than to a
group of its peer metros outside of Kentucky (rank correlation coefficient of 0.77). No doubt the high level of
refugee immigration to Louisville, compared to that of
the rest of Kentucky, is responsible for most of this difference.
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
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A very rough estimate of the composition of the Louisville metro’s foreign-born residents as of 1998 is given in
Figure 2.8. In creating the chart we have ignored the possible domestic migration of pre-1990 immigrants into
and out of the Louisville area, deaths of immigrants, and
also the possible domestic migration of newer immigrants
to and from the metro area.
However imprecise, this estimate indicates the direction
of change in the national composition of Louisville’s
foreign-born population and allows us to make some
useful comparisons to changes at the national and state
level. Thus if one compares the data displayed in Figure
2.8 to the estimates of the national origin of all US foreign-born persons around 1999, it follows that at the end
of the nineties the composition in Louisville differed
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
greatly from that of the US as a whole. The correlation
coefficient of the rankings of the top twelve nations of
origin between Louisville and the US is -0.1, a major disparity.
Based on our estimates, the 1990s immigration into Louisville has increased the national diversity of the immigrant
community in the metro area, as measured by the share
of immigrants not belonging to the top four countries
of origin. This indicator rose from 66 to 70 percent between 1990 and 1998. Characteristically, for the US as a
whole the trend in the nineties was in the opposite direction, as the share of immigrants who came to the US
from countries other than the top four decreased from
66 to 60 percent.
21
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Table 2.4 presents data on welfare use among different
origin groups of immigrants. Welfare use is measured by
the percentage of families of each national origin using
some type of economic assistance at the time of the survey (1998). Based on these statistics and estimates of the
national composition of the immigrant community in
the Louisville metro area, we calculated an average welfare use indicator for foreign-born persons. The welfare indicator is about the same for Louisville (21.1 percent) as for the US as a whole (22.4 percent).
However, the welfare use of Louisville’s immigrants is still
much higher than for native-born Americans, estimated
to be but 15.4 percent (Borjas, 1999).
22
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
III. Legal Categories of Immigrants to Louisville
A
ll foreign nationals who come to the US fall into
one of the following four broad groups - legal,
long-term visitors, short-term visitors, and illegal immigrants. Detailed definitions and a discussion of
the categories is provided in Appendix A, but generally:
• Legal immigrants, include such categories as: (i) family sponsored immigrants; (ii) employment-based
immigrants; and (iii) refugees and asylees.
• Long-term visitors, include: (i) non-immigrant professional visa holders, such as H1-B professionals; and (ii) students.
• Short-term visitors, include: (i) tourists; and (ii) business visitors.
• Illegal immigrants are everyone else.
In this chapter, we examine the 1990s immigrant flow to
greater Louisville from the standpoint of the legal categories of immigrant admission.
3.1 Legal Categories of Immigrants
Leaving aside tourists and other short-term visitors, the
“core” of the immigrant population is comprised of legal immigrants. For each category of legal immigrants
the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)
establishes an annual “cap” which includes the principal
immigrant and his/her immediate family members. At
present, for family sponsored immigrants the cap is set
at 480,000 people; for employment-based immigrants the
cap is 140,0001; for refugees and asylees it is 77,000; and
for diversity immigrants it is 55,000. The limit, however,
is not strict for the family-sponsored category as immediate relatives of US citizens are guaranteed the right of
the permanent residency in the US.
The overwhelming majority of legal immigrants come
to the US as relatives of US citizens and permanent residents. Of all persons granted permanent residency during 1990-98, family-sponsored immigrants comprised
64.9 percent, employment-based 12.6 percent, refugees
and asylees 14.6 percent, and others, including diversity
immigrants, 7.9 percent (INS, 2000)
Since most legal permanent immigrants come to the US
via family channels, a few countries, whose citizens settled
here in large numbers in previous years, dominate immigration flows. In the last fifteen years the top five countries of origin were Mexico, the Philippines, China, the
Dominican Republic, and India (see Attracting Immigrants to an Urban Area, 2000).
The immigration diversity program, launched by the US
in 1995, is aimed to correct this imbalance. The program
provides for 55,000 green cards to be distributed annually, via lottery, to the nationals of continents and countries that have been historically under-represented in US
immigration. In 1999, for example, 42 percent of the
selected individuals were from countries in Europe and
38 percent from Africa (OECD, 1999).
Long-term visitors, such as professional visa holders and
students, are not considered immigrants. Their visas allow them to live in the US on a temporary basis. For
professionals it is usually no more than six years, while
for students it is the duration of their studies, with no
automatic right of employment in the US. The numbers
of these longer-term visitors has fluctuated in recent years
— between 65-115,000 a year for professionals and 300400,000 for students.2 For professional visa holders the
INS establishes a strict annual limit. This limit was 65,000
during 1992-98 and 115,000 in 1999 and 2000. For 20012003, under pressure from high-tech companies, the annual limit was increased to 195,000 people. By some estimates, the total population of professional visa holders
and foreign students at the end of 2000 stood at about
600,000 people (FAIR, 2001).
Thus, from the standpoint of an individual born in a
foreign country, and not counting the green-card lottery,
there are basically three legal ways to settle in the US.
The vibrant US economy of the 1980s and 1990s has made the US government more willing to encourage employment-based immigration. The 1990 Immigration Law increased the annual employment-based quota from 50,000 (set by the 1965 Immigration Act) to
140,000.
2
Immigration statistics overstate the actual numbers of newly arriving students as some already enrolled students travel to and from the US
during each year.
1
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
23
The first legal way is to qualify as a refugee or asylee3. This
way is open only to citizens of countries experiencing
major political disturbances (e.g. wars, ethnic cleansing,
etc.) or living under oppressive regimes (e.g. Cuba, Iran,
or North Korea). Poverty and economic hardship by
themselves are not considered sufficient reasons to grant
a person refugee or asylee status. Thus, citizens of the
most populous countries, such as China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, or Nigeria generally cannot claim refugee
status in the US.
The second legal way is to be sponsored for permanent residency by a family member who is already in the US. This
family member has to be a US citizen or permanent resident and should have an adequate income in order to
help support the new immigrant. For immediate family
members (spouses, children, parents) of US citizens there
is no waiting period between the application and processing of a family re-unification request. For more distant relatives of US citizens, and for relatives of noncitizen permanent residents, the wait can be as long as 10
years, during which time an applicant has no right to stay
in the US.
The third legal way is to be sponsored by an employer in
the US. Many of the applicants for this employmentbased green card do so from inside of the US, while already working for their sponsoring company on a longterm employment visa (H1-B) or as a student. A quite
typical path to permanent US residency starts when a
foreign student graduates from a US college, finds an
employer who sponsors him/her for a temporary working visa (H1-B) and then upgrades this visa to the green
card with the help of the same employer.
In addition to the above legal ways, it is also possible to
immigrate to the US illegally. The two options here are
crossing the US border without inspection or entering
US legally on, for example, a tourist or student visa and
then overstaying it. In recent years about 60 percent of
illegal immigrants, mostly coming from Mexico, have
chosen the first option, while the others used the visa
overstay path. The US government has periodically provided amnesties for illegal immigrants, allowing them to
legitimize their status under certain conditions. The most
massive such amnesty was a result of the SimpsonMazzoli Immigration Bill of 1986, which led to the issuance of about 2.7 million new green cards. Most recently,
Law 245-I provided for an amnesty of one half million
illegal immigrants in 2000-2001.
3
3.2 Legal Categories of New Immigrants to
Louisville
Figure 3.1 shows the breakdown of 1990s immigration
for the Louisville metro area, its 14 peer metros, and the
US as a whole by the principal legal categories. It can be
seen that compared to the US average, Louisville was
getting twice the share of its new immigrants via refugee
channels (31.4 percent vs. 14.6 percent nationally) and
half the share via family channels (37.4 percent vs. 64.9
percent nationally). The share of employment-based immigrants to Louisville was close to the national average
(14.8 percent vs. 12.6 percent).
Compared to its peer metros, Louisville also had significantly higher share of refugees and lower share of family-based immigrants. Louisville’s share of employmentbased immigrants is lower than in these cities (14.8 percent vs. 18.0 percent). Still another interesting feature of
Louisville’s immigration is the very high share of “other
immigrants.” In Louisville this category accounted for
16.4 percent of all immigrants versus 7.9 percent for the
US and 9.2 percent for comparable metros. In Louisville’s
case, this category of immigrants primarily consisted of
“Amerasians,” a special category of immigrants describing mostly Vietnamese-born children and other relatives
of US military personnel. The origin of most Amerasians
dates back to the period of the Vietnam War.
Refugees and Vietnamese-born Amerasians between
them comprised 47.8 percent, or almost one-half of the
total inflow of immigrants to the Louisville area during
1990-98. This dominance of refugee-type immigrants is
one of the unique features of recent immigration to
Louisville.
Large swings in the number of refugees and Amerasians
explain much of the year-to-year fluctuations in immigrant flows to Louisville over the 1990s. Most Vietnamese immigrants were settled in Louisville in 1990-92. Since
then their flow has subsided from 30-40 percent of the
total to less than 5 percent in 1998. The number and
share of other refugees, on the contrary, started at a low
level in 1990-1991 (3-7 percent of the total) but escalated to 35-45 percent of the total in 1995-97 and to almost 60 percent of the total in 1998 (see figures 3.2 and
3.3).
Refugees are persons granted US government protection, and permission to enter the US from abroad. Asylees are persons granted
similar rights, if they apply after they have already entered the US.
24
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
Figure 3.1
Distribution of Classes of Admission for Immigrants to the Louisville MSA, the 14 Comparable Metros,
and the United States, 1990-98
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Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
25
On the other hand, the annual inflow of family-sponsored immigrants was more stable. It fluctuated
between 250 and 350 persons, corresponding to a 30-45 percent share
of the total. The number of employment-based immigrants generally
trended upward from 25 to about
100 persons a year. However, its
share in the overall flow of immigrants peaked above 20 percent in
1993 and has fluctuated between 10
and 20 percent since then.
Comparing the structure of 1990s
immigration to Louisville with that
of 14 peer metros confirms the
uniqueness of Louisville’s situation.
(See Figures 3.4-3.6.) When
Amerasian immigrants and refugees
are counted together, Louisville has
the highest share of all the metro
areas in this category. In terms of
refugees counted separately, only
one city — Nashville — has a share
higher than that of Louisville (34.0
percent vs. 31.4 percent). Of
Louisville’s neighbors, Indianapolis
(16.4 percent) and Cincinnati (14.2
percent) have ratios of refugees to
total immigrants close to the national
average (14.6 percent).
On the other hand, in the family category of immigrants, Louisville, with
37.4 percent, ranks last among the
15 metros. Nashville (40.5 percent)
and St. Louis (46.3 percent) are close,
while Indianapolis (57.2 percent) and
Cincinnati (56.4 percent) are significantly higher (see Figure 3.5).
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Finally, in the employment-based category, Louisville, with
a 14.8 percent share, finds itself near the bottom, above
only Omaha, Kansas City and Jacksonville, and just below Nashville (15.0 percent) and St. Louis (15.4 percent).
Louisville’s neighbors Indianapolis (21.4 percent) and
Cincinnati (23.4 percent) are at the top of this ranking at
#4 and #3, respectively (see Figure 3.6).
26
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
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Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
27
3.3 Legal Categories of New Immigrants by
National Origin
Figures 3.7 and 3.8 present information on the legal structure of immigration for the 12 largest individual national
groups of new immigrants to the Louisville metro area.
As can be seen in the figures, representatives of some
nations came to Louisville primarily or exclusively through
refugee channels, while others came primarily via family
connections or through employment offers. Thus, for
example, 93.2 percent of all Vietnamese came as refugees or Amerasians, only 6.8 percent via family channels,
and none came through employment offers. Of all Indian immigrants, 61.8 percent came via family channels,
38.2 percent via employment, and none as refugees. Similarly, 40.2 percent of Chinese immigrants came through
family-based channels, 59.0 percent came through employment-based channels, and less than 1 percent came
as refugees. In contrast, nearly all Cuban immigrants (99.1
percent) came as refugees, with less than 1 percent as
family members.
Overall, three groups can be distinguished among the
countries of birth of the immigrants: (i) refugee-dominated; (ii) family immigration dominated; and
(iii)employment-oriented.
The refugee-dominated group includes five countries:
Vietnam; Cuba; Bosnia (99.3 percent refugees); Ukraine
(87.8 percent refugees), and Russia (67.3 percent). For
reference, the share of refugees in the total immigrant
inflow to the US in the 1990s was 14.6 percent. Refugees
accounted for 20.2 percent of immigrants in Louisville’s
14 peer metros.
The family immigration group includes three countries: the Philippines, from which 85.6 percent of immigrants came via family ties; Korea (88.9 percent) and
Mexico (88.8 percent). For reference, the share of family-based immigrants in the total immigrant inflow to the
US in the 1990s was 64.9 percent. This group accounted
for 52.6 percent of immigrants in Louisville’s 14 peer
metros.
The employment immigration group includes four
countries: India (38.2 percent of all 1990s immigrants);
China (59.0 percent); Canada (59.8 percent); and the
United Kingdom (39.0 percent). For reference, the share
of employment-based immigration in the total immigrant
inflow to the US in the 1990s was 12.6 percent. Employment based immigration accounted for 18.0 percent of
immigrants in Louisville’s 14 peer metros.
Figure 3.7
Classes of Admission for Immigrants to the Louisville MSA by Country of Birth
Top Six Countries of Birth
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28
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Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
Figure 3.8
Classes of Admission for Immigrants to the Louisville MSA by Country of Birth
Countries of Birth Ranked 7-12
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The unusual legal composition of Louisville’s immigration has some implications for the metro’s economy and
fiscal situation. This primarily refers to the large share of
refugees in the immigrant flow. Based on a recent study
of immigration, on average, refugees generated just half
the income per person and forty percent of the tax payment per person compared to non-refugee immigrants
(Passel, and Clark, 1998). See Table 3.1.
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Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
29
To conclude, in terms of legal categories of admission,
the composition of recent immigration to Louisville is
significantly different from national averages and that of
most of its peer metros. First of all, 1990s immigration
to Louisville was heavily skewed towards refugee and refugee-type immigrants. About 50 percent, or nearly 3,400
out of the 7,000 new legal immigrants who came to Louisville during 1990-98 came via refugee channels. By this
indicator, Louisville is the absolute leader among the peer
metros. On a per capita basis, using Louisville’s population in 1998 as the base, in this period Louisville absorbed
about .35 percent of its population in refugees. The peer
metros absorbed about .24 percent of their population
in refugees and the US as a whole absorbed about .55
percent of its population in refugees. Thus, Louisville
can deserve a reputation as a refugee haven, but only
insofar as it compares to the rest of middle America.
Secondly, the component of Louisville’s immigration
coming via professional channels is not much different
from the national average, but is markedly lower than its
main competitor metros, such as Cincinnati and Indianapolis.
Thirdly, in contrast to the national trend, a relatively low
proportion of immigrants to Louisville came via familyreunification channels. The main reasons for this are the
very small initial base of the immigrant population in
1990 and the relatively small number of immigrants of
Mexican origin.
30
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
IV. Declared Occupations of Immigrants to Louisville
I
mmigrants legally admitted to the US fill out a form
which includes a question about their occupation.
Based on answers to this question one can evaluate
the occupational structure of the immigrant flow to a
particular city. Some caution has to be exercised. Although
the occupations used in this questionnaire follow the standard US classification scheme, the actual occupations declared by immigrants relate to their job experience in their
home countries and may not correspond directly to a
similar occupation in the US. 4 In addition, many of the
trained professionals coming from abroad cannot take
similar jobs in the US, even if they have all the necessary
training and experience. Thus, for example, an immigrant
medical doctor, fully accredited in his home country, cannot resume his career in the US without spending several
years re-training and becoming re-certified. Finally, many
new immigrants do not report any occupation, even
though some of them may have professional training.
the least skilled type of work. Groups six and seven are
self-explanatory, with group seven generally covering
members of immigrants’ families who are too young or
too old to work, or who are full-time students.
However, when applied to large groups of immigrants,
data on their occupational structure undoubtedly reflects
their overall qualifications. It is also the most current
source of information about their labor force potential.
Figures 4.1-4.3 present the occupational breakdown of
1990s immigration to Louisville, the US, and the 14 peer
metro areas.
For the purposes of our study we organized the 29 declared occupations of new immigrants into the following seven groups:
1. Science and technology professions
2. Healthcare professions
3. Other miscellaneous professions requiring formal
education
4. Artisans
5. Sales and service
6. Occupation/labor force status not reported
7. Not in the labor force
The first two groups cover professionals with the most
advanced training. The third group generally describes
immigrants with a college level education or better, e.g., a
shop floor manager, a technician, an educator, etc. The
fourth group includes blue-collar workers and other
manual workers and craftsmen, including, for example, a
tailor or a car mechanic. Group five generally describes
Numerous studies confirm the fact that the higher skilled
immigrants bring significantly greater economic, educational, and fiscal benefits to receiving US communities
See Attracting Immigrants to an Urban Area (2000) for
an extensive literature review. Based on that, we assume
that groups of immigrants with larger shares of the first
three occupational categories among their members correspond to a higher quality of immigration in the economic sense of this word.5
4.1 The Occupational Structure of Louisville’s
Immigration
Compared to the national averages, Louisville received a
somewhat larger proportion of high-tech and healthcare
professionals (4.2 and 3.1 percent vs. 3.0 and 2.2 percent, respectively). Its share of other professions requiring formal education (6.2 percent) is close to the national
average (5.7 percent). The same is true for Artisans and
Sales and Service personnel — their shares in Louisville
compared to the US were 18.1 vs. 15.4 percent and 8.5
vs. 7.9 percent, respectively.
Exactly one-half of Louisville’s immigrants reported
themselves as being out of labor force, compared to the
national average of 58.5 percent. The differences between
Louisville and the peer metros are less pronounced. In
these metros, the share of high-tech workers is somewhat higher (4.8 percent), the share of health-care professionals is the same (3.1 percent), the share of Artisans
is lower (14.6 vs. 18.1 percent), and the share of persons
not in the labor force is close (54.4 percent).
Of course, for the minority of immigrants coming to the US via employment-based invitations this correspondence is guaranteed by
definition.
5
Here and throughout the text immigrant quality is discussed only in economic sense of immigrants’ potential and should not be interpreted as an effort to evaluate individuals solely on the basis of their skills and education.
4
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
31
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32
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
Over the course of the decade,
the shares of some occupations
were relatively stable, while others fluctuated widely, reflecting
the major inflows of refugees in
some years. As is clear from Figures 4.4 and 4.5, the inflow of
immigrants in the high-tech job
category increased from single
digits in early 1990s to 30 to 60
persons per year in the second
half of the decade. Arrivals of
health-care professionals grew
similarly from single digits in the
early 1990s to 20-30 persons per
year in the second half of the
decade. The number of other
professionals
fluctuated
throughout most of the period,
in the range of 40-60 people per
year with no particular trend.
The number of blue-collar
workers and artisans in the
1990s gradually trended upward
from 100 to 150 persons a year.
The number of people who did
not report an occupation fluctuated at 30-50 people a year
during 1990-97, but jumped tenfold to over 400 in 1998. This
sudden increase, as will be detailed below, was related to a
major inflow of Cuban refugees
in that year.
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To see how Louisville’s situation
looks compared to its main competitor metros, we also computed the numbers and percentages of the different occupational groups for the immigrants
to the 14 peer metros. Based on
this data, in the 1990s Louisville attracted significantly
fewer immigrant professionals than most of its key competitors. Overall, Louisville received 958 immigrants with
professions of all types requiring formal education,
greater than only two cities in the group (see Figures 4.64.8). This was just one-third the number of such immigrants to St. Louis, one-half the numbers for Cincinnati
and Indianapolis, and about two-thirds the number for
Nashville. In terms of the percentage of such specialists
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Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
in the total inflow of immigrants, Louisville, with 13.5
percent, is in the middle of the group, but well behind
such competitor metros as Raleigh (23.9 percent), Cincinnati (20.7 percent), Indianapolis (19.7 percent), Birmingham (19.6 percent) and Dayton (18.5 percent). Measured by the share of high-tech professionals alone, the
absolute leader was Raleigh (9.0 percent), while in terms
of health-care professionals the leader was Birmingham
(5.0 percent).
33
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34
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
refugees, often needed a period of language and professional training before entering the work force. In addition, different nations of origin have different family
structures. Some immigrants traditionally come in small
family units, while others bring with them large numbers
of children and elderly family members.
Interestingly, the situation is almost exactly the opposite
with regard to blue-collar workers and craftsmen. Here,
Louisville, with 18.1 percent, is the third ranked metro,
just after Greensboro (20.7 percent) and Charlotte (18.9
percent). In contrast, metros boasting the highest levels
of professional immigration are at the bottom of the
list. Thus, in Indianapolis blue-collar type immigrants
comprised 11.4 percnt of the total, in Dayton 10.0 percent, in Raleigh 9.6 percent, in Cincinnati 8.9 percent,
and in Birmingham just 7.5 percent. It follows that, at
least throughout the 1990s, Louisville, unlike these metros,
was less attractive to professional immigrants than to
manual workers and artisans.
Figures 4.9 and 4.10 present the occupational structures
of Louisville’s immigrant communities by country of
birth for the top 12 source countries. It can be seen that
the individual national groups are very different from each
other in terms of the professional structure of their immigrants. For example, India and China show a significant proportion of high-tech specialists, while blue-collar workers and craftsmen dominate immigration from
Vietnam and Cuba. Overall, three groups of countries
can be distinguished: (i) those with a large component
of trained professionals; (ii) those dominated by the bluecollar occupations; and (iii) countries with a very high
share of non-working family members.
4.2 The Occupational Structure and National
Origin of Immigrants
The occupational structure of Louisville’s recent immigrant community is very closely related to its national
composition and legal category. For example, while some
nations of origin consistently supplied the metro with
highly trained professionals, others mostly provided
manual workers. Immigrants from some countries came
primarily via employment-based channels and immediately joined the local labor force, while others, such as
The first group includes countries where the share of all
professionals exceeds 20 percent, which is about twice
the average for US immigration as a whole. For Louisville, there were five such countries: India with 15.6 percent being high-tech professionals, another 7.8 percent
being health-care professionals, and 11.2 percent being
Figure 4.9
Distribution of Occupations for Immigrants to the Louisville MSA by Country of Birth
Top Six Countries of Birth
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35
other professionals; China (12.8 percent high-tech, 4.1
percent health-care, and 7.1 percent miscellaneous professionals); Canada (2.6 percent, 6.9 percent, and 17.3
percent, respectively); the United Kingdom ( 11.0 percent, 4.0 percent, and 18.0 percent, respectively); and
Russia (16.0 percent, 4.5 percent, and 2.6 percent, respectively).
The second group includes another five countries: Vietnam (34 percent artisans); Cuba (25.5 percent artisans);
Bosnia (31.4 percent artisans); Ukraine (27.1 percent artisans); and Mexico (19.0 percent artisans). For all of these
countries the share of artisans was higher than the US
immigration average of 15.4 percent.
The third group includes the remaining two countries:
the Philippines and Korea. Both of them demonstrated
a very high share of immigrants not in labor force. For
the Philippines this share was 66.9 percent, and for Korea 85.0 percent. This is compared to a national average
of 58.5 percent. It is possible that for the Philippines the
high share is explained by the results of the traditional
“mail-bride” business between this country and the US.
We have no explanation, however, for the still higher share
of Korean immigrants not in the labor force.
4.3 Distribution of Occupations by Legal
Category of Admission
Breaking down the occupational structure of 1990s immigrants by their legal categories of admission, we observed several patterns.
As expected, the highest-skilled immigrants are concentrated in the employment-based admissions category. This
is particularly true for employment-based immigrants
from India, China, Canada, Philippines and the United
Kingdom (see Figure 4.11). For each of these countries
the share of professionals of all types was 30 percent or
more of the total number of immigrants admitted in this
category.
Thus, of all employment-based immigrants from India,
32.7 percent were high-tech professionals, 11.6 percent
were health-care professionals, and 15.0 percent had other
professional occupations. Indian employment-based immigrants brought with them relatively small number of
dependents. Only 36.1 percent of Indian immigrants in
this category were not in the labor force, which means a
ratio of one dependent for every two professionals. Similarly, the inflow of Chinese employment-based immigrants consisted of 20.4 percent high-tech professionals, 4.6 percent health-care specialists, and 8.3 percent
Figure 4.10
Distribution of Occupations for Immigrants to the Louisville MSA by Country of Birth
Countries of Birth ranked 7-12
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Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
Figure 4.11
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miscellaneous other professionals. For Canada, high-tech
immigrants were just 2.2 percent of the total employment-based immigrants, but health-care specialists were
8.2 percent, and other professionals made up 23.0 percent of employment-based immigrants. For the Philippines, high-tech professionals comprised 13.0 percent,
health-care professionals 30.4 percent, and other professionals 8.7 percent of employment-based immigrants. For
the United Kingdom the shares were 11.5 percent, 1.3
percent, and 34.6 percent, respectively. Thus, Indians and
Chinese employment-based immigrants primarily came
to Louisville to take up jobs in engineering, computers,
and science, Canadians and UK immigrants came primarily to take jobs in management, and Filipinos to take
jobs in health care (mostly as nurses).
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
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In contrast to the employment-based immigrants, refugee and refugee-type immigrants, the majority of whom
came from Vietnam, Cuba, Bosnia and Ukraine, have
mostly provided Louisville’s labor market with manual
workers (see Figure 4.12). Russia is an exception to this,
even though most Russian immigrants come as refugees,
the percentage of professionals among them is almost
as high as among employment-based immigrants coming from other countries.
37
Figure 4.12
Distribution of Occupations for Immigrants to the Louisville MSA Admitted Under Refugee
Categories, Top Five Countries of Birth
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4.4 The Age Structure of Immigrants to the
Louisville MSA
The age structure of Louisville’s immigrants does not
differ significantly from that of US immigration as a
whole or from the peer metros (see Table 4.1). About
two-thirds (64.6 percent) of Louisville’s immigrants were
in the economically most productive age group (20 to 59
years old), slightly above the percentage for the US as a
whole (61.4 percent).
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Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
References
Attracting Immigrants to an Urban Area, Izyumov, Alexei
and Nahata, Babu (2000) , University of Louisville, March,
Louisville.
Passel, Jeffery S. and Clark, Rebecca L. (1998). “Immigrants in New York: Their Legal Status, Incomes, and
Taxes.” Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute Press.
Borjas, George J. (1999). “Heaven’s Door,” Princeton,
New Jersey, Princeton University Press.
Smith James P. and Edmonston Barry, eds. (1997). “The
New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal
Effects of Immigration,” National Research Council,
National Academy Press, Washington D.C.
Borjas, George, Editor (2000). Issues in the Economics
of Immigration. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Center for Immigration Studies (2001). “Immigrants in
the United States—2000. A Snapshot of American Foreign-born Population”, by Steven Camarota, Wash., DC.
Available at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/
back101.html
Encyclopedia of Louisville (2001). Ed. by John Kleber.
The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1990 Census of Population
and Housing.
U.S. General Accounting Office (1998). Immigration Statistics (GAO/GGD-98-164). Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Immigrants
Admitted into the United States as Legal Permanent Residents, 1990 through 1998, CD-ROM products.
FAIR (2001), The Federation for American Immigration
Reform. Available at: http://www.fairus.org/html/
states.htm
Frey, William H. and DeVol, Ross C. “America’s Demography in the Twentieth Century: Aging Baby Boomers
and New Immigrants as Major Players”. Santa Monica,
CA: Milken Institute (2000).
Lazear E. (1999) “Culture and language” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 107, no 6, pp.95-125.
Lazear E. (2000) “Diversity and Immigration” in: Borjas,
J. (Ed.) Issues in the Economics of Immigration, 117-142. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Ley D. and Smith H. (2000) “Relations between Deprivation and Immigrant Groups in Large Canadian Cities”
Urban Studies, Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 37-62.
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development—OECD (1999). ”Trends in International Migration.” Paris: OECD.
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
39
40
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
Appendix A: Terminology and Definitions
The primary geographical reference of this report is
Greater Louisville. Statistically Greater Louisville is defined as Louisville Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).
Names Louisville, Greater Louisville, Louisville metro
area are used in the report interchangeably. In all cases
unless otherwise noted these names relate to Louisville
Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). Louisville MSA includes seven counties in Kentucky and Indiana: Jefferson,
KY; Clark, IN; Floyd, IN; Bullitt, KY; Oldham, KY;
Harrison, IN; Scott, IN. The estimated combined population of these counties as of 2000 is slightly over 1 million.
The subject of this report are immigrants or foreignborn residents of the United States, in particular those
residing in Greater Louisville. Immigrant origin has to
be clearly distinguished from racial/ethnic origin and from
national ancestry.
Immigrants – in the most general sense are all foreignborn individuals residing in the US on a long-term basis.
In a more narrow legally defined sense, immigrants include only foreign-born individuals having permanent
resident status in the US, that is holders of US passports
or permanent residency permits, so called “green cards”.1
Legal immigrants also include refugees and asylees, who
are foreign-born persons admitted to the US for humanitarian reasons. After a year in the US they are generally
granted permanent resident status. In contrast to other
categories of immigrants, refugees are guaranteed economic support by the government in re-settlement, training and job-search efforts.
Racial/ethnic origin is a US Census Bureau definition,
based on classification of all Americans into one of the
five broad groups: White-Non Hispanic, African-Americans, White Hispanics, Asian-Americans, Native Americans (American Indians and Alaska Natives). The last
four of these groups are often termed “ethnic minorities”. Classifying someone as a member of one of the
above categories is based on self-reporting during the
Census of Population surveys. Naturally, ethnic group
categories overlap with immigrant-origin groups. For
example, a Mexican immigrant will qualify both as Hispanic and as an immigrant.2 An immigrant from an African country will qualify as African-American, while an
immigrant from China will qualify as Asian-American.
In the same way an immigrant from Canada or from
Bosnia will be classified as a White non-Hispanic. However, children of immigrants born in the US are not considered immigrants. Thus a child of Mexican-immigrants
will not be counted as an immigrant.
Racial/ethnic origin classification is exhaustive: it covers
all 100 percent of the US population. In contrast, foreign-born Americans, however numerous, are a just a fraction of this total, representing as of 2000 about 10.5%
of the US population. To compare based on the 2000
Census, two of the US ethnic minorities – African-Americans and Hispanics individually account for over 12% of
the US population. That is, each of these ethnic minorities is larger than the combined population of all foreign-born residing in the US in 2000.
National ancestry is a Census Bureau classification that
relates a person’s origin to a particular country via ancestry roots. In contrast to immigrant origin, which is clearly
defined by the birth in a particular foreign country, national ancestry is a much less precise concept. It generally points to one of the several blood lines running in
the family, regardless of birth-place of a person in question. For example, about one third of Louisville’s residents, that is over 300,000 people, claim to be of German stock (Encyclopedia of Louisville, 2001). However only
a small fraction of these people, no more than 5 thousand, were actually born in Germany, rather than in the
US.
1. A ‘green card’ gives its holder the right to enter and exit the US at any time, get employment and stay there indefinitely. Permanent residents
pay all US taxes but can not vote or be elected to government offices. After five years of permanent residency green card holders can apply
for and receive US citizenship (become ‘naturalized’). Alternatively they can keep their original citizenship for as long as they like. In
Louisville, for example, an estimated one-third of immigrants are US citizens and two-thirds are permanent residents with non-US citizenship.
2. The latest estimates put the number of Hispanics in the US at 35.5 million, of whom about 10 million are foreign-born (Wall Street Journal,
March 14, 2001, page A 14.
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
41
While our study is focused on legal immigrants, including refugees, it also deals with some of the non-immigrants groups of foreign-born, which includes long-term
visitors, short-term visitors and illegal immigrants.
Long-term visitors are foreign-born individuals residing in the US for the purposes of work, study or for
other reasons and holding various types of temporary
visas, e.g. students, temporary foreign workers, and diplomats. Long-term visitors of these types do not possess “green-cards” and are not immigrants in a legal sense.
Short-term visitors are foreign-born individuals visiting the US for pleasure or business, without the right to
be employed, e.g. tourists, business visitors, and family
visitors. Short-term visitors can not have green cards.
Illegal immigrants are foreign-born persons residing
in the US on a long-term basis without appropriate documentation. Illegals come to the US either by crossing US
borders without inspection (approximately 60% of all
illegal immigrants) or by overstaying their temporary visas. Other terms used to describe illegal immigrants are
“illegal aliens” and “undocumented immigrants”.
42
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
Appendix B. Net International and Domestic Migration to States, 1990-99
1 California
2 New York
3 District of Columbia
4 New Jersey
5 Hawaii
6 Florida
7 Texas
8 Illinois
9 Nevada
10 Washington
11 Maryland
12 Massachusetts
13 Connecticut
14 Arizona
15 New Mexico
16 Virginia
17 Oregon
18 Rhode island
19 Colorado
20 Idaho
21 Utah
22 Alaska
23 Georgia
24 Delaware
25 Minnesota
26 Kansas
27 Michigan
28 Pennsylvania
29 Nebraska
30 Oklahoma
31 North Dakota
32 Vermont
33 North Carolina
34 Iowa
35 Missouri
36 South Dakota
37 New Hampshire
38 Louisiana
39 Tennessee
40 Indiana
41 South Carolina
42 Wisconsin
43 Ohio
44 Wyoming
45 K entucky
46 Arkansas
47 Alabama
48 Montana
49 Maine
50 Mississippi
51 West Virginia
International
2,222,239
1,078,011
29,137
368,874
52,844
629,692
699,780
376,277
54,755
144,514
128,958
143,499
71,367
103,667
37,515
142,510
64,914
15,895
64,306
17,724
29,769
8,650
103,884
9,118
54,165
27,656
98,354
111,849
14,892
28,051
5,245
4,849
57,149
20,750
37,661
4,843
6,900
25,101
29,928
28,649
18,210
24,526
51,955
1,966
15,631
10,017
13,898
2,725
3,826
6,719
3,351
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
D omestic
-2,152,382
-1,836,029
-141,469
-365,226
-100,255
1,053,298
570,383
-544,901
420,216
361,709
-58,541
-232,157
-220,328
575,303
42,239
87,912
261,418
-62,501
402,582
133,976
73,986
-24,423
653,213
33,765
86,206
-14,427
-193,640
-247,881
-3,067
45,881
-34,922
5,116
541,196
-14,321
99,893
-2,193
29,730
-128,574
350,823
81,271
136,917
89,068
-162,268
-2,436
96,278
109,710
109,522
48,471
-8,819
46,649
4,029
1999
Population
33,145,121
18,196,601
519,000
8,143,412
1,185,497
15,111,244
20,044,141
12,128,370
1,809,253
5,756,361
5,171,634
6,175,169
3,282,031
4,778,332
1,739,844
6,872,912
3,316,154
990,819
4,056,133
1,251,700
2,129,836
619,500
7,788,240
753,538
4,775,508
2,654,052
9,863,775
11,994,016
1,666,028
3,358,044
633,666
593,740
7,650,789
2,869,413
5,468,338
733,133
1,201,134
4,372,035
5,483,535
5,942,901
3,885,736
5,250,446
11,256,654
479,602
3,960,825
2,551,373
4,369,862
882,779
1,253,040
2,768,619
1,806,928
Per Capita
Migration
6.7%
5.9%
5.6%
4.5%
4.5%
4.2%
3.5%
3.1%
3.0%
2.5%
2.5%
2.3%
2.2%
2.2%
2.2%
2.1%
2.0%
1.6%
1.6%
1.4%
1.4%
1.4%
1.3%
1.2%
1.1%
1.0%
1.0%
0.9%
0.9%
0.8%
0.8%
0.8%
0.7%
0.7%
0.7%
0.7%
0.6%
0.6%
0.5%
0.5%
0.5%
0.5%
0.5%
0.4%
0.4%
0.4%
0.3%
0.3%
0.3%
0.2%
Source: Frey and De Vol,
0.2%
2000
43
Appendix C.
Estimates of the Current Size of Louisville’s Foreign-Born Community
Existing statistics make it difficult to provide a precise
estimate for the stock of foreign-born residing in Greater
Louisville at the present time. While immigrant flow statistics of the INS provides the most precise account of
new foreign-born persons coming to the US via legal
channels, it has its limitations. At the metro area level
INS does not offer publicly available data on non-immigrant categories of foreign-born, such as students and
professional visa holders. For obvious reasons, it also gives
no account of undocumented immigrants. INS data, importantly, does not follow demographic changes and secondary migration of foreign-born to and from a city in
question. The latter statistics are tracked by the Bureau
of Census, but reliable data on a metro area level appear
only once in ten years following decennial Census of
Population.
Due to these reasons, the number of foreign born presently residing in Louisville MSA can only be estimated
tentatively. By our calculations, including students, foreign-born temporary workers and undocumented immigrants, by spring of 2001 this number should be between
25 and 45 thousand, or between 2.5% and 4.5 % of the
total Louisville’s population. More precise estimates will
be possible to make when the detailed results of the US
2000 Census of Population become available in approximately a year. Thus, estimates of Louisville immigrant
population can only be provided based on the previous
Census of 1990 and statistics of the US Immigration
and Naturalization Service, which reports data on newly
settled immigrants.
In 1990 the Louisville’s metro area population of foreign-born was only 12 thousand persons, roughly about
one third of the total for Kentucky. Compared to other
metro areas, the percentage of foreign-born in Louisville was quite low—just over 1.3 %.
In the course of the last decade more than seven thousand or about 40% of all new legal immigrants coming
to Kentucky settled in Louisville. (The exact number of
new settlers in Louisville in 1990-1998, as reported by
the INS, was 7,073). Even though some of them moved
to other cities and states, Louisville gained more foreignborn than it lost due to domestic migration and inflow
of non-immigrant foreign-born, such as professionals
on temporary visas and students. Based on state-wide
44
estimates for Kentucky for 2000 (total of 97 thousand
foreign-born) at present Louisville’s immigrant population should be no less than 35 thousand. It is more likely
to be above 40 thousand.
For the total metro-area population of Louisville of just
over 1 million (1,026 thousand as of 2000) it translates
to 3.5 - 5% of population. Compared to the national
average of 10.4% it is still a relatively low number. However it is clear that Louisville is catching up with its peer
cities. If current trends continue one should expect
Louisville’s immigrant population to reach 100-130 thousand by the year 2010.
The rapid growth of immigrant community in Louisville
is indirectly supported by the statistics of changes in the
race/ethnic composition of the metro’s population. Between 1990 and 2000 the total population of the metro
grew by 8.1%. In the same period, the number of Asian
Americans in the metro increased by 102.8% (nationally
– by 72.2%) and the number of Hispanic or Latino
Americans increased by 182.9% (nationally – by 57.9%).
Thus, Louisville’s Asian and Hispanic communities have
been growing in the 1990s much faster than in the US as
a whole.
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Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
Appendix D.
Explanation of Cover Map: Settlement Patterns by Zip Code of Immigrants to the
Louisville MSA During the 1990s
6HWWOHPHQW3DWWHUQVRI,PPLJUDQWV
WRWKH/RXLVYLOOH06$'XULQJWKHV
,PPLJUDQWVWRWKH/RXLVYLOOH06$E\=LS&RGH
Source: US Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
45
46
Immigration to the Louisville Metropolitan Area
March
2000
The Foreign-Born Population
in the United States
Issued January 2001
Population Characteristics
P20-534
This report describes the foreign-born population in the United States in 2000. It provides a profile of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, such as region of
birth, geographic distribution in the United
States, age, educational attainment, earnings, and poverty status. These characteristics are compared with those of the native
population, and because the foreign born are
a heterogenous group, variability within the
foreign-born population is also discussed.1
The findings are based on data collected by
the Census Bureau in the March 2000 Current Population Survey (CPS).2
Simply put, the Foreign Born were not U.S.
citizens at birth. Natives were born in the
United States or a U.S. Island Area such as
Puerto Rico, or born abroad of at least one
parent who was a U.S. citizen.
1
For similar comparisons
between the Hispanic and
White, not Hispanic populations in the United States, see
Therrien, Melissa, 2001, The
Hispanic Population in the
United States: March 2000,
Current Population Reports,
P20-535, U.S. Census Bureau,
Washington, D.C.
2
The population universe
for the March 2000 CPS is the
civilian noninstitutional population of the United States and
members of the Armed Forces
in the United States living off
post or with their families on
post, but excludes all other
members of the Armed Forces.
POPULATION SIZE AND
COMPOSITION
One-third of the foreign-born
population is from Mexico or another
Central American country.
Current
Population
Reports
By Lisa Lollock
In 2000, 28.4 million foreign born resided in
the United States, representing 10.4 percent
of the total U.S. population. Among the foreign born, 51.0 percent were born in Latin
America3, 25.5 percent were born in Asia,
15.3 percent were born in Europe, and the
remaining 8.1 percent were born in other
regions of the world.4 The foreign-born
3
Latin America includes Central America, the Caribbean, and South America.
4
For more information on the countries included in
each of the six regions of the world used in this report,
see Schmidley and Gibson, 1999, Profile of the ForeignBorn Population in the United States: 1997, U.S. Census
Bureau, Current Population Reports, Series P23-195,
Washington, D.C.
Figure 1.
Foreign Born by Region of Birth: 2000
(In percent)
LATIN AMERICA 51.0
Central America 34.5
EUROPE 15.3
Caribbean 9.9
ASIA 25.5
South America 6.6
OTHER
REGIONS 8.1
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, March 2000.
Demographic Programs
USCENSUSBUREAU
U.S. Census Bureau
Helping You Make Informed Decisions
U.S. Department of Commerce
Economics and Statistics Administration
U.S. CENSUS BUREAU
1
population from Central America (including Mexico) accounted for nearly
two-thirds of the foreign born from
Latin America and for about onethird of the total foreign born (see
Figure 1).
The foreign born are more
geographically concentrated
than the native population.
In 2000, 39.9 percent of the
foreign-born population lived in the
West, 26.8 percent in the South,
22.6 percent in the Northeast, and
10.7 percent in the Midwest.
Among natives, 35.9 percent lived
in the South, 24.6 percent in the
Midwest, 20.8 percent in the West,
and 18.6 percent in the Northeast
(see Figure 2).
The foreign born from Latin America
were more likely to live in the West
(42.1 percent) and South (32.6 percent) than those from other regions
of the world. The foreign born from
Central America (who represent twothirds of the foreign born from Latin
America) were also concentrated the
most in the West (58.5 percent) and
South (27.4 percent). The Latin
American foreign born from the Caribbean and from South America were
concentrated in the Northeast
(45.5 percent and 46.0 percent, respectively) and the South (48.7 percent and 35.3 percent, respectively).5
Nearly half of the foreign born from
Asia lived in the West (47.8 percent).
Figure 2.
Population by Nativity and Region of Residence: 2000
(As a percent of each population)
Foreign born
Native
22.6
Northeast
18.6
10.7
Midwest
24.6
26.8
South
35.9
39.9
West
20.8
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, March 2000.
Figure 3.
Population by Nativity and Age Group: 2000
(As a percent of each population)
Foreign born
Native
10.0
Less than 18 years
28.3
79.0
18-64 years
59.7
11.0
65 years and over
12.0
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, March 2000.
The foreign born are more
likely than the native
population to live in central
cities of metropolitan areas.
Almost half of the foreign born lived
in a central city in a metropolitan
area (45.1 percent) compared with
slightly more than one-quarter of the
5
The percentages living in the Northeast
and South are not significantly different for
either the Caribbean or South America.
2
native population (27.5 percent).
The percentage living outside central
cities but within a metropolitan area
was slightly less for the foreign born
than for the native population
(49.8 percent and 51.9 percent, respectively). The percentage of the
foreign born living in nonmetropolitan areas (5.1 percent) was much
smaller than the percentage of natives (20.7 percent).
The foreign born are more
likely than natives to be 18 to
64 years of age.
In 2000, 79.0 percent of the foreign
born were 18 to 64 years of age,
whereas 59.7 percent of natives
were in this age group (see Figure 3).
More specifically, whereas 43.6 percent of the foreign born were ages 25
to 44, 28.6 percent of the native
population were in this age group.
U.S. Census Bureau
Figure 4.
Population by Nativity, Age, and Sex: 2000
(In percent)1
Foreign Born
Age
Males
8.0
6.0
4.0
2.0
Native
Age
Males
Females
85+
85+
80-84
80-84
75-79
75-79
70-74
70-74
65-69
65-69
60-64
60-64
55-59
55-59
50-54
50-54
45-49
45-49
40-44
40-44
35-39
35-39
30-34
30-34
25-29
25-29
20-24
20-24
15-19
15-19
10-14
10-14
5-9
5-9
0-4
0-4
0
0
Percent
2.0
4.0
6.0
8.0
8.0
6.0
4.0
2.0
0
0
Percent
Females
2.0
4.0
6.0
8.0
1
Each bar represents the percent of the foreign-born (native) population who were within the specified age group and of the specified sex.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, March 2000.
of the native population. The small
proportion of foreign born in the
youngest age group occurred because most of the children of
foreign-born parents are natives.
Figure 5.
U.S. Citizenship of the Foreign-Born
Population by Year of Entry: 2000
(In percent)
80.4
Before 1970
61.9
1970-79
38.9
1980-89
After 1990
8.9
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, March 2000.
Among the foreign born, 24.3 percent
were 45 to 64 years old compared
with 21.7 percent of natives (see Figure 4).
U.S. Census Bureau
The proportion age 65 and over was
about the same for the foreign born
(11.0 percent) and natives (12.0 percent). Relatively few foreign born
were less than 18 years of age (10.0
percent) compared with 28.3 percent
More than one of every three
foreign born are naturalized
citizens.
Among the foreign born in 2000,
39.5 percent entered the United States
in the 1990s, another 28.3 percent
came in the 1980s, 16.2 percent entered in the 1970s, and the remaining
16.0 percent arrived before 1970.6
Among those who arrived before
1970, 80.4 percent had obtained citizenship by 2000. Of those who entered from 1970 to 1979, 61.9 percent
had obtained citizenship by 2000,
compared with 38.9 percent of those
6
The percentage of foreign born who entered in the 1970s is not statistically different
from the percentage who entered before 1970.
3
who entered from 1980 to 1989, and
only 8.9 percent of those who entered
from 1990 to 1999 (see Figure 5).7
Figure 6.
Family Households With Five or More People by
Nativity and World Region of Birth: 2000
(In percent)1
FAMILY HOUSEHOLD SIZE
AND MARITAL STATUS
The foreign born live in family
households that are larger
than those of natives.
In 2000, 26.6 percent of family households in which a foreign-born person
was the householder consisted of five
or more people.8 In contrast, only
13.2 percent of native family households were this large. Among foreignborn family households, the proportion with five or more people varied
from 42.1 percent when the householder was from Central America to
9.8 percent when the householder was
from Europe (see Figure 6).9
13.2
Native
26.6
Foreign born
9.8
Europe
22.2
Asia
35.1
Latin America
42.1
Central America
19.7
Caribbean
23.3
South America
19.4
Other Regions
1
Each bar represents the percent of family households, whose householder
was born in the specified area, that consisted of 5 or more people.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, March 2000.
Among the population 15 years and
over, the foreign born were more
likely to be currently married10 than
natives (61.0 percent compared with
53.2 percent). Of the foreign born,
naturalized citizens had a higher
proportion married (66.4 percent)
than non-citizens (57.4 percent).11
Figure 7.
Population by Nativity and Educational
Attainment: 2000
(As a percent of each population age 25 and over)
Foreign born
Native
22.2
EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT
Two of three foreign born have
graduated from high school.
The foreign-born population age
25 and over was less likely to have
graduated from high school than
7
After migration to the United States, some
foreign-born residents become naturalized citizens. This process usually requires 5 years of
residence in the United States.
8
Family households consist of two or more
people, at least one of whom is related to the
householder (the person who owns or rents the
housing unit). Foreign-born households have a
foreign-born householder.
9
The percentage of family households that
contained five or more people did not differ
significantly between those maintained by a
foreign-born person from Asia, the Caribbean,
South America, or other regions.
10
Includes cases in which the spouse is absent, but excludes those who are separated.
11
Marital status is calculated for those age
15 and over.
4
Less than 9th grade
4.7
10.8
9th to 12th grade
8.7
41.2
High school graduate
or some college
Bachelor's degree
or more
61.0
25.8
25.6
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, March 2000.
natives (67.0 percent and 86.6 percent, respectively). In addition, more
than one-fifth of the foreign born
had less than a ninth-grade education (22.2 percent) compared with
about one-twentieth of the native
population (4.7 percent).
The proportions with a bachelor’s degree or more education were not significantly different between the
U.S. Census Bureau
but differed between foreign-born
women (5.5 percent) and native
women (4.2 percent).14
Figure 8.
Population With at Least a High School Education
by Nativity and World Region of Birth: 2000
(In percent)1
86.6
Native
67.0
Foreign born
81.3
Europe
83.8
Asia
49.6
Latin America
Central America
37.3
68.1
Caribbean
79.6
South America
86.6
Other Regions
1
Each bar represents the percent of individuals age 25 and over, who were born in the
specified area, who have at least a high school education.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, March 2000.
foreign-born (25.8 percent) and the
native population (25.6 percent, see
Figure 7). The foreign born who were
naturalized citizens were more likely
to have graduated from high school
than the foreign born who were not
citizens (76.2 percent and 59.8 percent, respectively).
Educational attainment among
the foreign born varies by
region of birth.
The highest percentages of high
school graduates were found among
Asians, Europeans, and those from
other regions (83.8 percent,
81.3 percent, and 86.6 percent, respectively), compared with Latin
Americans (49.6 percent). Among
the foreign born from Latin America,
those from South America were most
likely to have graduated from high
school (79.6 percent), and those
12
The percentages of foreign born from
Europe and Asia with a high school degree or
more were not significantly different from each
other or from the percentage of those from
South America. The percentage of Asians that
had graduated from high school was not significantly different from the percentages from
other regions.
U.S. Census Bureau
Foreign-born workers were more
likely than native workers to be in
service occupations (19.2 percent
and 13.2 percent, respectively).15
Conversely, 24.7 percent of the foreign born were in managerial or professional specialty occupations, compared with 30.9 percent of natives.
Among the foreign born, the percentage of workers in managerial or
professional specialty occupations
ranged from 7.0 percent of those
from Central America to 38.7 percent of those from Asia.16
from Central America were the least
likely (37.3 percent), as shown in
Figure 8.12 The proportion who had
attained a bachelor’s degree ranged
from 44.9 percent for those from Asia
to 5.5 percent for those from Central
America.
ECONOMIC
CHARACTERISTICS
The foreign born earn less
than natives.
In 1999, 36.3 percent of foreignborn full-time, year-round workers
and 21.3 percent of native workers
earned less than $20,000.17 Among
foreign-born workers, the proportions earning less than $20,000
ranged from 57.1 percent of those
from Central America to 16.2 percent of those from Europe and
22.4 percent from Asia.18 More natives earned $50,000 or more
(24.6 percent) than foreign born
(19.1 percent).
The foreign born are more
likely to be unemployed than
natives.
In March 2000, 4.9 percent of the
foreign born in the civilian labor
force were unemployed compared
with 4.3 percent of natives.13 Unemployment rates were similar between foreign-born men (4.5 percent) and native men (4.4 percent),
13
Civilian labor force data shown in this report reflect characteristics of the civilian noninstitutionalized population age 15 and over for
March 2000 and are not adjusted for seasonal
changes. Data released by the Department of
Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, may not agree
entirely with data shown in this report because
of differences in methodological procedures
and their seasonal adjustment of the data.
14
The unemployment rates were not statistically different between native women and native or foreign-born men, or between foreignborn women and foreign-born men.
15
The occupational classification system
used here and by the Bureau of Labor Statistics
is the one used in the 1990 Census of Population and is based largely on the 1980 Standard
Occupational Classification (SOC).
16
The percentage of foreign-born workers
from Asia who were in executive, administrative, or managerial occupations did not differ
from the percentage from Europe or other regions.
17
Data on earnings and poverty in this report refer to the calendar year before the survey. In this case, earnings information collected in March 2000 refers to calendar year
1999.
18
The percentage of foreign born from South
America who earned less than $20,000 was
not significantly different from the percentage
from Asia.
5
The foreign born are more
likely to live in poverty than
natives.
In 1999, 16.8 percent of foreignborn residents were living below the
poverty level, compared with
11.2 percent of natives.19 The foreign born without U.S. citizenship
were more than twice as likely to live
in poverty (21.3 percent) as foreignborn naturalized citizens (9.1 percent).20 Among the foreign born,
Latin Americans had the highest
poverty rate, whereas Europeans had
the lowest (21.9 percent and 9.3 percent, respectively).21 Among Latin
Americans, the poverty rate was lowest for South Americans (11.5 percent), in comparison with Central
Americans and Caribbeans
(24.2 percent and 20.6 percent, respectively), as shown in Figure 9.22
Figure 9.
People Living Below the Poverty Level by
Nativity and World Region of Birth: 2000
(In percent)1
11.2
Native
16.8
Foreign born
Europe
Asia
9.3
12.8
21.9
Latin America
24.2
Central America
20.6
Caribbean
South America
Other Regions
11.5
11.0
1
Each bar represents the percent of individuals, who were born in the specified area,
who were living in poverty.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, March 2000.
SOURCE OF THE DATA
Estimates in this report come from
data obtained in March 2000 by the
CPS. The Census Bureau conducts
the CPS every month, although this
report uses only data from the March
survey.
ACCURACY OF THE
ESTIMATES
Statistics from surveys are subject to
sampling and nonsampling error. All
comparisons presented in this report
have taken sampling error into account and meet the Census Bureau’s
standards for statistical significance.
Nonsampling errors in surveys may
19
Poverty status is based on a set of money
income thresholds that vary by family size and
composition (see Dalaker, Joseph, 2000. Poverty in the United States: 1999. U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P20-207; or
www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty.html).
20
The poverty rate for naturalized citizens
was not significantly different from the rate for
natives.
21
The poverty rates for those from Europe,
Asia, and other regions were not statistically
different.
22
The poverty rates for those from Central
America and the Caribbean were not statistically different.
6
be attributed to a variety of sources,
such as how the survey was designed, how respondents interpret
questions, how able and willing respondents are to provide correct answers, and how accurately the
answers are coded and classified.
The Census Bureau employs quality
control procedures throughout the
production process — including the
overall design of surveys, the wording of questions, reviews of the work
of interviewers and coders, and statistical review of reports.
the categories used in weighting
(age, race, sex, and Hispanic origin).
All of these considerations affect
comparisons across different surveys
or data sources.
For further information on statistical
standards and the computation and
use of standard errors, contact Jeffrey Stratton at the Census Bureau
Demographic Statistical Methods Division on the Internet at:
dsmd_s&[email protected].
MORE INFORMATION
The Current Population Survey employs ratio estimation, whereby
sample estimates are adjusted to independent estimates of the national
population by age, race, sex, and
Hispanic origin. This weighting partially corrects for bias due to undercoverage, but how it affects different
variables in the survey is not precisely known. Moreover, biases may
also be present when people who
are missed in the survey differ from
those interviewed in ways other than
Sixty detailed tables from the March
2000 CPS are available on the
Internet, at the Census Bureau’s Web
site (www.census.gov). Once on the
site, click on “F,” then select “Foreign
Born Population Data.” Under “CPS
March 2000" choose “Data Tables.”
Data from previous years (19951999) are also available on this Web
site.
U.S. Census Bureau
To receive a paper version of these
tables, send your request for “PPL135, Profile of the Foreign-Born
Population in the United States:
March 2000,” along with a check or
money order in the amount of
$38.80, payable to “Commerce-Census-88-00-9010,” U.S. Department of
Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau, P.O.
Box 277943, Atlanta, GA 303847943, or call the Statistical Information Office at 301-457-2422. A copy
of these tables will be made available to any existing Current Population Report P20 subscriber without
charge, provided that the request is
made within 3 months of the issue
date of this report.
U.S. Census Bureau
CONTACT
Statistical Information Office:
[email protected]
301-457-2422
This report was partially funded by
the Immigration and Naturalization
Service.
SUGGESTED CITATION
USER COMMENTS
The Census Bureau welcomes the
comments and advice of data and report users. If you have any suggestions or comments, please write to:
Lollock, Lisa, 2001, The Foreign Born
Population in the United States:
March 2000, Current Population Reports, P20-534, U.S. Census Bureau,
Washington, D.C.
Chief, Population Division
U.S. Census Bureau
Washington, DC 20233
or send e-mail to: [email protected]
7