A Profile of the Foreign-Born in the Louisville Metropolitan Area

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Summary

This profile of immigrants in the Louisville metropolitan area ("Louisville") is intended to help local officials, policy makers and service providers better understand the size, characteristics and needs of the region's immigrant population. Immigrants are a growing and important element of the Louisville community and the local economy and workforce, while the children of immigrants are a fast-growing segment of the metropolitan area's school-age population. Given that immigrants may be unable or reluctant to advocate for themselves, it is important for Louisville's community leaders to devise policies that both address the needs of immigrants and their families and maximize immigrants' contributions to the Louisville economy and civic society. To this end, this report will outline the demographic characteristics, strengths, assets and service needs of the diverse communities of immigrants living in Louisville.

The Louisville metropolitan area is defined as Jefferson County and 22 surrounding counties—14 in Kentucky and 8 in Indiana—based on geographic boundaries available in the 2000 Census. This report uses the 2000 Census and more recent data where available to produce a demographic portrait of the immigrant population, with a special focus on refugees. Immigrants—also described as "foreign-born" in the report—are people born outside of the United States, excluding United States citizens born abroad to American parents, or in United States territories such as Puerto Rico. Following are highlights from the analysis:

• The foreign-born share of the Louisville metropolitan area's population (4.5 percent) was well below the national average (12 percent) in 2004, but the metropolitan area's immigrant population is growing rapidly. In 2004, the foreign-born population of the Louisville metro area was 53,000; this number is likely an underestimate, as Louisville's immigrants are undercounted in official government surveys, according to local data experts. The 2004 figure represents a 93 percent increase in the foreign-born population since 2000, and a 388 percent increase since 1990. Nationally, the number of immigrants grew by 10 percent between 2000 and 2004 and by 73 percent between 1990 and 2004. Immigrants have become a critical component of the total population growth in Louisville—immigrants represented about half (49 percent) of Jefferson County's total population growth during the 1990s. Although Louisville has a long history of immigration, the recent rapid growth in the number of newcomers poses challenges for the area's infrastructure. Employers, elementary and secondary schools, universities, job training centers, hospitals and social service providers are among the many important public and private institutions that must grapple with how to serve this fast-changing population.
• Louisville's immigrants are more diverse in their origins than immigrants nationally; they include large numbers of Latin American immigrants as well as refugees from all over the world. Latin America was the region of origin for 55 percent of all immigrants nationally in 2004, compared to just 38 percent in Louisville. By contrast, a higher share of immigrants in Louisville came from Africa (15 percent) and Asia and the Pacific (35 percent) than was the case nationally (2 and 26 percent, respectively). The share of Louisville immigrants from Europe (12 percent) was just below the national average (16 percent). The diversity of Louisville's immigrant population means that public schools must be prepared to educate students from diverse cultural backgrounds who speak a wide variety of languages. Other institutions such as hospital emergency rooms and motor vehicle departments also face a growing need for interpreter services. In fact, at least 77 languages were spoken in the homes of Louisville's residents in 2000, and 78 languages were spoken in Jefferson County schools.
• Louisville has a lower share of undocumented immigrants than is the case nationally and in most other Southeastern communities. In 2000, according to our best estimates using census data, the share of Louisville immigrants who were undocumented (18 percent) was lower than the national average (27 percent). The undocumented share in many Southeastern cities exceeded 30 percent—for example, 32 percent of Nashville's immigrants were undocumented. Undocumented immigrants are those who entered the United States illegally, often across the Mexican border; overstayed temporary visas; or otherwise violated the terms of their immigration status. Louisville's relatively low share of undocumented immigrants is associated with a low share of total immigrants from Latin America, as the vast majority of undocumented immigrants come from Mexico and other Latin American countries.
• Louisville has a high share of refugees, due to its large federal refugee resettlement program. According to our estimates using census data, 15 percent of Louisville's immigrants are refugees, twice the national share of 7 percent. The actual share of refugees among Louisville's immigrants may be even higher, since refugee admissions data suggest that the census undercounted this population. Refugees are immigrants whom the U.S. government has designated as those having a well-founded fear of persecution in their home countries; the refugee designation makes them eligible for United States government-funded services upon arrival. Refugees are resettled in Kentucky through the Wilson-Fish Program, a public-private partnership that provides benefits and social services during refugees' initial years in the United States. According to data from the Kentucky State Refugee Coordinator—which shows numbers far higher than the census—about 10,800 refugees were resettled in or moved to the Louisville area during 1994–2004. These refugees were born in a wide range of countries in the Caribbean, Europe, Africa and Asia, and they contribute greatly to the diversity of Louisville's population. Louisville's successful refugee resettlement program may have lessons to offer those who provide employment and social services to other immigrant groups.
• Most of Louisville's immigrant groups are highly educated. In 2000, Louisville foreign-born adults age 25 and over were considerably more likely to have a four-year college degree than native-born residents of the metropolitan area (33 versus 19 percent). Almost half (48 percent) of immigrants born in Asia and the Pacific, and over a third (37 percent) born in Africa had four-year college degrees. All other immigrant groups, except those from Latin America, were more likely than natives to be college graduates. Latin American immigrants, the least educated group, still had a four-year college rate just below natives (17 versus 19 percent). Even when they have high levels of formal education, immigrants often face other barriers to employment, such as lack of English proficiency and difficulty transferring credentials from their home countries.
• Latin Americans and Africans are the poorest immigrants, while the median income for Asian and European immigrants exceeds that for native-born Louisville residents. In 1999, nearly a third (30 percent) of immigrants from Latin America had family incomes below the federal poverty level, compared with only 10 percent for European immigrants and 15 percent of native-born Louisville residents. Immigrants from Africa also fared worse than native-born Louisville residents with 19 percent earning below the federal poverty level. On the other hand, median family incomes for Asian immigrants ($36,000) and European immigrants ($38,000) exceeded the median for natives ($30,000), and were more than twice the median income for immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries ($17,000). Due to their relatively high poverty rates, Latin American and African immigrants experience the greatest levels of economic hardship and need for public benefits and social services. Moreover, because Latin Americans are such a large and fast-growing immigrant group, their demands on Louisville's social service infrastructure are likely to increase greatly in the near future.
• The number of immigrant workers is growing rapidly, especially those who work in low-skilled jobs. From 1990 to 2000 the number of immigrant workers grew by 158 percent while the number of native-born workers grew by only 10 percent. Between 1990 and 2000, the number of low-skilled immigrant workers (i.e., those without high school degrees) rose even faster (170 percent) while the number of low-skilled natives fell by 19 percent.
• The best-educated workers earn the highest wages, regardless of whether or not they are immigrants. The relatively high educational attainment of many immigrant groups is reflected in their high income and earnings. In 1999 immigrants with four-year college degrees earned more than twice as much as high school dropouts ($19 versus $8 per hour), and immigrants earned about the same amount as natives with equivalent levels of education. Approximately 60 percent of foreign-born and native-born workers without high school degrees earned less than twice the minimum wage in 1999, compared to just 15 percent of native-born and 22 percent of foreign-born workers with college degrees. These patterns suggest that Louisville's community leaders should invest in education and training programs tailored toward Latin American and other low-income immigrants in order to raise their productivity. Improving immigrants' productivity and wages would also lower their poverty and demand for public benefits and social services.
• Rapid immigration has more than doubled the number of students enrolled in English as a second language programs in Jefferson County Public Schools over the past seven years. Between the 1997–98 and 2004–05 school years, the number of English as a second language (ESL) students in the Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) grew by 122 percent, from 900 to 2,000. Large increases in the number of ESL students are associated with rapidly increasing immigration, as the vast majority of Louisville's immigrants come from non-English speaking countries. These rapid changes in student demographics have dramatic implications for JCPS. As a condition for receipt of federal Title I funding, the No Child Left Behind Act holds schools accountable for the test scores of limited English speaking students, in addition to all students generally. JCPS has invested considerable resources in the education of ESL children and should continue to monitor closely the education of this student population.
• Immigrant parents with school-age children in Louisville are better educated than native-born parents—the reverse of the national pattern. In 2000 in Louisville, about the same proportion of children of immigrants and natives (11 and 9 percent) had parents with less than a high school education. But nationally, children of immigrants were more than three times as likely as children of natives to have parents with less than a high school education (34 versus 9 percent). At the other end of the spectrum, a higher share of children of immigrants than natives in Louisville had parents with four-year college degrees (34 versus 24 percent). Nationally, a higher share of children of natives had parents with college degrees (30 versus 26 percent).
• Despite the relatively high educational attainment of immigrant parents overall, there are many immigrant parents with lower educational attainment—especially those from Latin America—and the number of these immigrant parents is growing rapidly in Louisville, as they are nationally. These immigrant parents—who are often low-income as well as poorly educated—may need additional incentives or services such as adult education to increase their involvement in their children's education. Moreover, since many of these less-educated parents also have limited English skills, schools with limited interpretation resources may find it challenging to communicate with them, as required by the No Child Left Behind Act. To meet these requirements, schools serving large numbers of ESL students—for instance, the ESL schools in JCPS—should expand on programs that involve parents and teach them English and other skills.

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