On two social factors that help determine the well-being of young people, children of immigrants stack up almost as well or better than the offspring of native-born parents, a new report says.
According to the report, released this month by the Washington-based First Focus and the New York-based Foundation for Child Development, children in immigrant families are much more likely than children of U.S.-born parents to live in two-parent homes and just as likely to have moved in the past year.
Twenty-five percent of children of immigrants live with one parent, compared with 32 percent of children whose parents were born in the United States. That’s an important indicator, the report says, because, on average, children who live with one parent have less educational success than those from two-parent homes.
On other indicators of well-being, however, such as enrollment in prekindergarten programs, children in immigrant families don’t fare as well as those of native-born parents, the study found.