Children in the United States of America: A Statistical Portrait by Race-Ethnicity, Immigrant Origins, and Language

• Author: Nancy A. Denton,Victoria L. Blanchard,Donald J. Hernandez
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716210383205
• Published date: 01 January 2011
• Date: 01 January 2011
• Subject Matter: Articles

102 ANNALS, AAPSS, 633, January 2011

The rights that the Convention on the Rights of the

Child (CRC) enumerates include the rights to (1) an

adequate standard of living, (2) an education directed

toward the development of the child’s fullest potential,

(3) the highest attainable standard of health, and (4) the

child’s own cultural identity and use of his or her own

language. The CRC states that these rights shall be

ensured regardless of various statuses of children, includ-

ing race, ethnic origin, national origin, and language.

This article presents a statistical baseline for assessing

the diversity of children in the United States with

regard to these statuses, presents results for statistical

indicators of well-being for children distinguished by

these statuses, and discusses public policies to reduce

inequalities relevant to these rights.

Keywords: Convention on the Rights of the Child

(CRC); immigrants; race; language; pov-

erty; education; health; culture

In Article 2, the Convention on the Rights of

the Child (CRC) states that the rights set

forth in the CRC shall be respected and

ensured “irrespective of the child’s or his or her

parent’s . . . race, colour, sex, language, religion,

political or other opinion, national, ethnic, or

social origin, property, disability, birth or other

status” (United Nations [UN] General Assembly

1989). Yet there is a long history in the United

States of disadvantage and discrimination based

on many of these statuses. The rights that the

CRC enumerates include broad ones, such as

“the survival and development of the child”

(Article 6), but also more specific ones, includ-

ing the right to an “adequate standard of living”

(Article 27), the right to an education directed

toward developing the child’s “fullest potential”

(Article 28), the right to the “highest attainable

standard of health” (Article 24), and the right

“to enjoy his or her own cultural identity . . . or

to use his or her own language” (Article 30).

The study discussed herein addresses these

rights first by presenting a statistical baseline for

assessing the diversity of children in the United

States with regard to race-ethnicity, immigrant

Children in the

United States

of America:

A Statistical

Portrait by

Race-Ethnicity,

Immigrant

Origins, and

Language

By

DONALD J. HERNANDEZ,

NANCY A. DENTON,

and

VICTORIA L. BLANCHARD

DOI: 10.1177/0002716210383205

CHILDREN IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 103

DOI: 10.1177/0002716210383205

origins, and parental language. Next, it presents results reflecting the extent to

which children in diverse groups experience a low standard of living involving

material poverty, a lack of access to early education and educational success at the

secondary level, and a lack of health insurance coverage. Finally, this article dis-

cusses public policy interventions that might reduce inequalities in access to eco-

nomic, educational, health, and language appropriate resources that are critical for

the survival and development of diverse children.

The authors calculated most results presented below from the U.S. Census

Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) for 2005, 2006, and 2007, using

the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS), prepared by Ruggles et al.

(2010). Results concerning high school graduation and health insurance coverage

are from the Current Population Survey for 2001 to 2005.1

The Race-Ethnic Transformation of the United States:

Immigration, National Origin, and Language

Article 2 of the CRC is especially relevant in the United States with its enormous

diversity. For years 2005 to 2007, for example, only 54 percent of children were

whites in native-born families, that is, white children born to parents who also were

born in this country. (The terms white, black, Asian, Native American, and Hawaiian

and other Pacific Islander refer in this article to persons who are non-Hispanic.)

Thus, nearly half of children belong to Hispanic or nonwhite race-ethnic groups, or

they live in immigrant families with at least one foreign-born parent, or both.

Charting the race-ethnic transformation

The trend is toward still greater diversity. U.S. Census Bureau population pro-

jections indicate that the percentage of white children fell sharply from 75 percent

Donald J. Hernandez is a professor in the Department of Sociology at Hunter College and

the Gr aduate Center at City University of New York. He recently completed a UNICE F proj-

ect developi ng indicators for immigrant children for eight wealthy countries. Currently, he is

studying race-ethnic, immigrant, and socioeconomic disparities in child well-being using the

Foundation for Child Development’s Child Well-Being Index (CWI).

Nancy A. Denton is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University at Albany,

State University of New York (SUNY), where she is also the director of the Lewis Mumford

Center and associate director of the Center for Social and Demographic Analysis. She is cur-

rently working on a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)–

funded project about the neighborhood locations of children in immigrant families.

Victoria L. Blanchard is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at the University at

Albany, SUNY. She has recently published research that examines the effectiveness of marriage

education. Her research interests include fertility trends and predictors.