Immigrant parents have higher educational expectations for their children than do non-immigrant parents. This helps to explain how the Black immigrant population has created a relatively high performing – (education and jobs) –second generation.
There are a lot of first and second generation Black immigrants.
between 2000 and 2020, the United States added two million new Black immigrants, initially mostly Caribbean-born to more evenly divided between the Caribbean and Africa. In 2020 there were 4.5 million first generation Black persons, and around 4 million second generation black immigrants. In other words, first and second-generation Black persons account for 20% of the total Black population (47 million) in the U.S. In 1990, there were very roughly 1.3 million first- and second-generation Black immigrants, or 3% of the Black population (30 million).
The first generation of Nigerian immigrants is very well educated. But the entire cohort of Black second generation is doing relatively well.
A recent article described the remarkable rise of second-generation Black immigrants in education. Second-generation Black Americans have surpassed both native-born Blacks and Whites in education. In 2019–2024, their college-degree rate for men were 3 points ahead of white man. Second generation Black women graduation was five points ahead of white women.
Pew Research says that “Nearly a third of Black immigrants ages 25 and older (31%) had at least a bachelor’s degree in 2019, up from 21% in 2000. This 10 percentage point increase was larger than the increase among the Black U.S.-born population (8 points), the entire U.S.-born population (9 points) and the entire immigrant population (9 points).”
Black women, for instance, markedly outperform native-born Black women in both education and earnings. Black women earn on average about $31,500 annually. White women on average earn about $39,500. Second-generation Black women earn at or above the White average, therefore significantly more than the Black average.
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