Of 1.67 million Indian Americans in the country, about one million were born in India

There are an estimated 28.4 million foreign-born residents in the United States, or roughly one of every 10 Americans was born in another country. And one quarter of this foreign-born population is from Asia and more than a million of them were born in India, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest figures based on its 2000 decennial count.

The bureau, in a report titled ‘Profile of Foreign-born Population in the United States: 2000,’ authored by Dianne Schmidley, said between 1900 and 2000, the number of Indian-born residents in the U.S. doubled from 450,000 to about 1,007,000.

India is among the five largest contributors to the foreign-born population of the U.S. and ranks after only China and the Philippines.

The rapid increase in the Indian-born population was part of the general trend in the foreign-born population, which rose from 9.6 million in 1970 to 28.4 million in 2000 due to the high level of international migration during the past generation, according to the report.

The total number of Americans of foreign stock — that includes foreign-born and native population of foreign or mixed parentage — touched an all-time high of 55.9 million, which means roughly one in every five Americans is of foreign stock.

“And the number of foreign-born and first-generation residents is likely to rise in the future as recent immigrants form families,” said Schmidley. “One indication of this is the fact that births to foreign-born women now account for 1-in-5 births in the U.S., which is up from about 1-in-20 three decades ago.” Most of the children of the foreign-born first generation Americans are born in the U.S.

The estimates in Schmidley’s report were based on the March 2000 Current Population Survey. The 77-page report, which includes a set of detailed tables, along with a brief on the foreign-born population from Asia, was issued in February this year, and highlights several interesting aspects about the Asia-born population — which includes people from the Far East, Southeast and South Asia.

* As a result of the high levels of international migration of young adults during the period 1970-2000, the foreign-born and first-generation population has become not only larger, but also younger. As a result, 21 percent of the nation’s population under age 25 in 2000 was either foreign-born or first-generation, up from only 7 percent in 1970.

* Close to half (about 45 percent) of the Asian-born population lives in one of three metropolitan areas: Los Angeles, New York or San Francisco.

* In 2000, 47 percent of the population from Asia were naturalized U.S. citizens. Only those born in Europe had a higher rate of 52 percent.

* Households with a foreign-born householder from Asia had a median income of $51,400 in 1999 — the highest income of any foreign-born group and higher than the median for all native households ($41,450). The median for all foreign-born households was $36,000. The Census Bureau report said the high income levels of those born in Asia may be the result of several factors, including a relatively high proportion of both male and female workers in managerial and professional jobs.

* The number of Asian-born workers employed in managerial or professional specialty jobs was 39 percent, higher than the proportion for native (31 percent) or foreign-born workers as a whole (25 percent).

* The median duration of residence in the United States for the foreign-born population was 25 years for those from Europe and 14 years each for those from Asia and those from Latin America.

* The average size of a household with a Asian-born householder was about 3.18 people compared to 3.7 persons for those with Latin American householders and a low of about 2.3 persons for those with householders from Canada and Europe.

* The proportion of people 25 years or older who were born in Asia and had a high school education or higher was 84 percent, which was slightly less than the proportion for the native population (87 percent), but was considerably higher than the 67 percent for the foreign-born population as a whole.

* Fifty-two percent of Asian-born householders owned the homes they lived in. This was not statistically very different from the rates for all foreign-born householders (49 percent), but it was lower than that for native Americans (70 percent).