Have Baby, Will Travel
More and More Americans are Being Born in Foreign Countries
In my previous posts on the American diaspora, I’ve used several different methods to explore the size of the diaspora and annual migration flows. For today’s post, I’ll use American Community Survey data to look at how many native-born American citizens are born abroad.
Americans abroad can register their children with Consulates to claim citizenship for them. I have been unable to find consistent data on how many such registrations occur, however, such sporadic reporting as I did find suggested about 47,000 such citizenship claims in 2006, and 40,000 in 1982. Another source suggests between 39,000 and 62,000 individuals born to US citizen parents per year between 2000 and 2009. But for this post, I’ll stick with ACS data.
So how many diasporan-born are there? For this whole post, I will refer to individuals born to US citizens abroad as the “diasporan-born.”
Huge Caveat: Sadly Census does not make it easy to get detailed numbers on the “Population Born Abroad to US-Parents.” Age breakdowns are only available for “Native-born Abroad” which includes Puerto Ricans born in Puerto Rico residing in the United States, as well as residents of various territories. The first graph, showing just the plain numbers, is able to separate out just the truly “diasporan born.” Unfortunately, when I get to talking about age data, I can’t replicate that clean separation. Luckily, as you’ll see, that doesn’t meaningfully change my results.
The American Baby Diaspora
Rapid Growth of Diasporan-Born
The diasporan-born population in the United States has grown consistently in absolute terms, and as a share of the population, since 1990, and that growth has accelerated since 2007. For the period 2007 to 2013, the diasporan-born have risen from under 0.7 percent to 0.85 percent of the population, or from 2.1 million to 2.7 million individuals. That’s 28% growth over just 6 years. The national average was 4.8% growth.
Notably, the Puerto Rican population in the United States declined as a share of the total population from 1990 to 2006, and has risen fairly slowly since. This has an interesting result. First, the Puerto Rican component of my diasporan-born data is a shrinking share (from 49% of the group in question to 37%). Second, the total “native-born abroad” category will understate the rate of growth compared to the diasporan born. This is a two edged sword. The total “native-born abroad” category will overstate the number of diasporan-born, but understate the rate of growth. Because the rate of growth is of more interest to me, and the basis for the conclusions I’ll reach, this means that the inclusion of Puerto Ricans in much of the data is not a fatal flaw. Whew. You literally don’t know how frustrated I was when I realized there wasn’t a simple way to separate out Puerto Ricans.
Also, for what it’s worth, the 2.7 diasporan-born in the US outnumber the 2 million New Mexicans, or Chinese or Indian immigrants, and have almost equaled Nevada in size. Speaking of the states…
The American Baby Diaspora
Mapping the Diasporan-Born
The diasporan-born are disproportionately concentrated in a few states like Alaska, Hawaii, Virginia, Colorado, Washington, and Nevada. These are states that have military or diplomatic personnel, large immigrant communities, or large international business connections. In the midwest and the Mississippi watershed, the diasporan-born are markedly less common.
The American Baby Diaspora
Diasporan-Born Population is Middle-Aged
Like the American population generally, the diasporan-born are middle-aged. But reading the above graph is, I’ll admit, kind of tricky: should we conclude that the American diaspora grew like gangbusters from 1930 to 1968? Well, yes, it probably did: but it’s also true that a lot of people born in 1930 are now deceased, so the diasporan-born population looks artificially low for that period. In other words, this is a minimum threshold for the diasporan-born population. It reflects exclusively diasporans born in a given year who remain alive today and who resided in the United States between 2005 and 2013. That’s a very restrictive number. It’s easy to imagine that a large share of the diasporan-born may still be abroad, and it’s easy to imagine that, especially for older diasporans, the way of all flesh may have taken its toll in reducing their numbers.
But remember how I said that the State Department reported 40,000 diasporan births in 1982? Well, we can now make another, separately derived estimate of that number. Just based on my “bare minimum” estimate, at least 38,300 Americans were born abroad in 1982. That does not include any who may have died (probably not very many, as those born in 1982 would just now be in their 30s) or those who still live abroad. The children of diasporans would seem to be good candidates for becoming diasporans themselves, so it seems likely the born-abroad-and-still-abroad population may be substantial. In other words, while the State Department number seems like it’s in the ballpark, it’s probably a bit low.
For 2000–2009, I find an average of about 21,000 diasporans born abroad, so lower than the State Department’s number. However, this is a statistical illusion: people born in 2000 are just now turning 15, while those born in 2009 are just 5. The big time when young diasporans move back to the United States is 18–24: the college years. Plus, for various reasons, my adjustment for Puerto Ricans probably overcompensates for the very young, artificially reducing my estimate for them.
To see how the diasporan-born return over their life cycle, we can compare ACS years. In the 2005 ACS, the estimate for diasporan-born Americans ages 5 to 17 was 40,000, while the 18–24 range was 47,000. By 2009, the 5–17 range rose to 44,000, while the 18–24 range rose to 64,000. By 2013, these figures rose again: 5–17 to just 47,000, 18–24 to 70,000. Indeed, my estimate for the number of people born in 2000 rose from 40,000 in the 2005 ACS to 47,500 in the 2013 ACS. For individuals born in 2004 (the last birth-year for 2005 ACS), my estimate rose from 18,000 to 47,000. The graph above smoothes out these differences for an estimate of the whole period, but the point is that, if there are already 35,000 diasporan-born Americans in the U.S. born each year from 2000 to 2009, then the State Department number is almost certainly too low.
The American Baby Diaspora
Growth for All Ages of Diasporan-Born
Strikingly, the diasporan-born population grew for every age category from 2005 to 2009 and from 2009 to 2013. The fastest growth rate in raw terms from 2005 to 2013 was for the elderly: every age group over 55 years grew by more than 50%, reflecting both an aging population, and a growing number of diasporans returning to the U.S. to retire. The next fastest growing group was 18 to 24 year-olds, suggesting high diasporan birth rates between 1989 and 1995, and the growing importance of education.
When assessed in terms of the share of population instead of raw numbers, 18 to 24 year-olds saw the fastest growth. Diasporan-born young people are fleshing out the ranks of American college students, as well as kindergartens and elementary schools.
The American Baby Diaspora
Shrinking Diaspora or Growing Diaspora?
This birth data can tell two different stories: the American diaspora could be shrinking because Americans abroad are moving back to the US, or it could be growing, and increasing arrivals of diaspora-born individuals are a symptom of a larger diasporan population. So how do we decide which story is true?
One notable piece of evidence is that the diasporan-born population grew for every age group: the number of individuals born in 1931 grew just like the number born in 2001. That seems to support the idea that a growing number of diasporan-born in the US is associated with a shrinking American diaspora generally.
On the other hand, my previous research focused on foreign-country census data that excluded diasporan-born Americans from the definition I used for the diaspora. In other words, my previous estimate of the American diaspora did not include the children of Americans abroad. So my estimate of a growing “diaspora” is immune to any changes in the migration of those born abroad to American citizens.
So if we’re seeing a growing number of Americans of all ages “coming home” and a growing number of US-born individuals “going abroad,” what is it we’re actually seeing?
The American Baby Diaspora
Official Measures of the Diaspora
I’ve mentioned many times that the Census does not track emigration or the diaspora. You can read about why they don’t track the diaspora in this fun response to a Congressional inquiry.
But, once upon a time, the Census did track overseas Americans. The data shown here comes from Census efforts to apportion Americans to states of residence and congressional districts, to support apportionment of representatives (remember how I mentioned millions of diasporans? Well, that can impact how districts are drawn).
Official Census estimates are far, far lower than what any reasonable accounting of the data would suggest. This is because the only diasporans that the Census reliably tracked were government employees and their dependents. So for 1900–1940, all you’re seeing is the Federal employee count abroad and their families. In 1950, merchant vessel crews get added. For 1960 and 1970, the Census uses voluntary registrations filed by Americans with US embassies abroad to estimate “other citizens” as well. But in 1980, that practice was dropped, as it led to double-counting of some people, and still failed to count the majority of civilian diasporans.
Census stopped publishing this data because they were confident it was wrong. That is, wrong on the low end. But I publish it because it still shows us something important: the rise and fall of the official diaspora. That graph essentially shows the personnel presence of the US government abroad, tracking the US’ rise to global superpower status, and perhaps declining international presence since.
The American Baby Diaspora
The Changing of the Guard
Much of the diasporan-born population was born during the Cold War: recall that the most common birth year was 1966. But the world has changed since 1966. Global migration flows have changed, the economy has changed, immigration into the United States has declined, and now we have iPods. But perhaps most importantly, the Cold War is over, and American military forces have been drawn down from their heights in the 1970s and 1980s. The “official” diaspora is shrinking as the United States is no longer a sole, hegemonic actor outside of the Warsaw Pact, and as security commitments become less politically pressing.
The new American diaspora is more likely to go abroad for private sector work or education as compared to the old American diaspora that was more dominated by military deployment. The rise of the multinational corporation has, likewise, created a new flow of Americans abroad, discontinuous with old flows.
In other words, the American diaspora is experiencing a structural change around the globe. A growing share of it is composed of “hyphenated Americans” in Latin America and Asia, young people going to school or teaching English, multinational corporate employees, and retirees, while a far smaller share are civilian government or military personnel. With more Americans going abroad as part of their normal, civilian life, and seeing life abroad as part of a career strategy, we can expect more American babies abroad as well.
With a more diversified diaspora holding less formalized ties to the US government, traditional means of tracking the diaspora are likely to prove inadequate. State department registries of American citizens would seem especially likely to experience diminishing accuracy as more Americans abroad possess multinational identities, and fewer have close government ties. At the same time, as more diasporan-born come back to the US, they possess experiences and connections that can be valuable for themselves, their communities, and the nation. Such “Third Culture Kids” will be increasingly common in the future, and have an increasingly significant impact on the nation’s culture.
Read the next post, where I explore Iowa’s migration record!
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I’m a grad student in International Trade and Investment Policy at the George Washington University’s Elliott School, and an economist at USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service. I like to learn about migration, the cotton industry, airplanes, trade policy, space, Africa, and faith.
My posts are not endorsed by and do not in any way represent the opinions of the George Washington University nor the United States government or any branch, department, agency, or division of it. My writing represents exclusively my own opinions. I do not receive any financial support or remuneration from any party for this research.
