New York City is in the midst of a demographic transition, which will ultimately transform the cultural, economic, and political life of the nation's largest city. More than 56% of the city's population are foreign-born or the children of foreign-born. The new immigrants pose a serious challenge to the civic and political institutions of New York City while also providing the basis for rejuvenating old neighborhoods, replenishing the city's labor force, creating new jobs and industries, and strengthening the city's ties to other nations and cultures.

Based upon an analysis of data gathered by the U.S. Census, Hispanics have replaced blacks as the second largest racial/ethnic group in the five boroughs. In 1996, there were 1.926 million Hispanics in New York City, an increase of more than 143,000 from the 1.783 million recorded in the 1990 U.S. Census. more than one out of ten New Yorkers is from Asia. While blacks also increased during this period, their total rose by less than 50,000, from 1.847 million to 1.894 million. During the same period whites declined by nearly 385,000 from 3.163 million to 2.780 million, while Asians rose from 490,000 to 630,000.

The Foreign-Born in New York City

By the year 2000, approximately 37.5% of the city's population will be foreign-born, a percentage that rivals the high point of immigration for New York City in 1910, when 40% of the city's population was foreign-born. The foreign-born constitute an important share of all ethnic and racial groups living in New York City. In 1996, 35.1 % of the city's black households were headed by a foreign-born person, and 46.7% of the city's Hispanic households were headed by a foreign-born person as well. The foreign-born accounted for 26.8% of the city's white households in 1996.

The data show that the number of foreign-born persons in New York City has risen dramatically since 1980, when 23.4%, or 1.7 million, were immigrants. By 1996, that number had grown to more than 2.4 million, or 33.9% of the city's population.

Ethnic and Racial Trends

Immigration has also altered the ethnic and racial composition of the city's total population. In 1990, whites constituted 43.4% of the city's population and 38.5% of the city's population in 1996. Blacks increased slightly from 25.4% in 1990 to 26.2% in 1996. Hispanics rose from 24.5% in 1990 to 26.6% in 1996. Asians grew from 6.7% of the city's population in 1990 to 8.7% in 1996.

With the exception of Staten Island, there is no borough in New York City where a single ethnic/racial group constitutes a majority of the population. Hispanics constituted 42.5% of the Bronx in 1990 and 46.5% in 1996; they accounted for 19.1% of Queens County's population in 1990 and 23.9% in 1996. In Manhattan the share of the Hispanic population rose from 25.5% in 1990 to 30.3% in 1996. The black percentage stayed roughly the same in all boroughs during this time period, except for the Bronx where blacks rose from 31.4% to 34.4% of the borough's population.

The Geographic Realignment of the City's Ethnic and Racial Groups

The data also highlight the geographic realignment of the city's black population away from Manhattan. Less than 15% of the city's black population lives in Manhattan, while more than 60% of the city's black population lives in Queens and Brooklyn. The only borough which has ever had a black borough president is Manhattan, a tradition that will continue when City Councilwoman C. Virginia Fields is formally sworn in as Manhattan Borough President in January, 1998.

The percentage of whites declined in all five boroughs, most steeply in Queens, where it went from 48.2% in 1990 to 39.1% in 1996. The Asian percentage of the population fell slightly in Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island, but rose from 5.2% to 6.4% in Brooklyn and from 12.4% to 16.6% of the population in Queens County. More than half of New York City's Asian population lives in Queens, and by the turn of the century, almost one-fifth of Queens' total population will be Asian. Despite the growth of the Asian population in New York City as a whole, there is not one elected official of Asian background in the City of New York today.

Queens County had the highest number of households headed by the foreign-born in 1996, with nearly 350,000 or almost half of slightly more than 700,000 households in the borough. Brooklyn had approximately 344,000 households headed by a foreign-born person, more than 40% of the borough's total households. Just over 30% of the households in Manhattan and the Bronx were headed by the foreign-born in 1996, and 16% of the households in Staten Island were headed by a foreign-born individual.

Immigration, Ethnicity and Education

The increased flow of immigrants into New York City poses a distinct challenge for the city's educational systems. More than 46% of the school-age children in New York City are living in a household headed by a foreign-born person.

There are also major differences in educational attainment among the city's ethnic/racial groups.

For persons 25 years of age and older, 38.8% of the white population and 36.% of the Asian population consists of college graduates. For the black population 25 years of age and older, 18.5% are college graduates, for Hispanics who are 25 years of age and older, 12.2% are college graduates. Within Manhattan, more than 72% of the white population age 25 years of age and older consists of college graduates; more than half of all the white college graduates aged 25 years of age and older who live in New York City, live in Manhattan.

Methodology and Data Sources

The data used in this report is based upon the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey conducted in 1996. This survey is conducted periodically by the U.S. Bureau of the Census for the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development to determine the vacancy rate among the city's rental housing stock. In the past, the data have also been used to analyze the physical condition of the city's housing stock.

This report is the first instance in our knowledge which uses the additional demographic information collected in the survey to study the city's changing population. Approximately 18,000 households containing 38,000 people were surveyed via printed questionnaire, and the responses of the entire sample were made available in machine-readable format by the Census Bureau. We estimate the margin of error of our calculations for major categories at less than 2% of stated figures. Additional figures for calibration and additional depth are based on analysis of the 1996 March Supplement to the Current Population Survey, a longer version of the monthly survey conducted jointly by the Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Labor, used mainly to determine unemployment rates.

 Appendix: Charts and Tables

 

 

 

Table 1
35% of all black households are headed
by a foreign-born person, up from 30% in 1991.

Of households headed by blacks:

	1991	1996
Head of household is native-born	69.4%	64.9%
Head of household is foreign-born	30.6%	35.1%

Source: 1996 NYC Housing and Vacancy Survey

 

Table 5
New York City Population data and projections, 1980-2000
(Microsoft Excel File)