Immigrants

Immigration had an important influence on the American population during the last third of the twentieth century comparable to peaks in the earliest decades of the century. In 1997, for example, nearly 800,000 persons immigrated legally to the United States. In that year, the mean age of native-born American adults eighteen and over was virtually identical to that of long-term immigrants (45.1 and 45.0 years, respectively), while recent immigrants averaged 33.5 years of age. Since people usually immigrate when they are young, immigration offsets the effects of population aging, but only in the short run. Because immigrants also grow older, 10.8 million new immigrants would be required annually to maintain year-2000 support ratios (the ratio of persons age fifteen to sixty-four to those sixty-five and older) until 2050. Since recent immigrants are largely from Asia and the Western hemisphere, the older population will grow more diverse in its ethnic and racial composition as young immigrants age.