USA IMMIGRATION NEWS

1 in 7 people in US born overseas by 2020

Wednesday, 5 March 2008

Between 2020 and 2025, the foreign-born will account for 15% of the American population, if current immigration trends continue.

The Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan research group, has estimated that more than 1 in 7 US residents will be foreign-born within about two decades' time.

Looking back, immigrants represented approximately 12 % of the US population in 2005, 14.7% in 1910 and about 15% in the late 19th century.

They've even gone as far as to predict that 19% of Americans will be foreign-born in 2050. They've estimated that by that time, the total population will have grown to 438 million, with immigrants accounting for 82%, or 117 million, of the increase.

The analysis, by Jeffrey S. Passel and D’Vera Cohn, projects a higher rate of immigration than a few federal agencies do.

Because the vast wave of baby boomers will be joining the ranks of the elderly, the number of young and elderly compared to the number of working people (the so-called dependency ratio) would rise to 72 per 100 in 2050. This is compared with 59 per 100 in 2005.

If the rate of immigration slows, this ratio would be even higher in the future, according to the projections.

Passel and Cohn do make it clear, though, that their projections are subject to changes in behavior, legislation and other events, and that they are merely offering a starting point for understanding and analyzing the parameters of future demographic change.

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