The United States Census Bureau says foreign-born households, including Caribbean Americans, are, on average, larger than native households, have more children under age 18, and are more likely to be multigenerational.

In a new report about the characteristics of America’s foreign-born population from the 2010 American Community Survey (ACS), “The Foreign-Born Population in the United States: 2010,” the bureau said the average size of foreign-born households (3.4 people) was larger than that of native-born households (2.5 people).

It said about 62 per cent of foreign-born family households included children under 18, compared with 47 per cent of native-born households. The bureau also said that multigenerational households, with three or more generations living together, were more common among Caribbean and foreign-born (10 per cent) than native-born (five per cent) family households.

Among the regions of birth, family households with a householder born in Latin America and the Caribbean were the most likely to include children under 18 (70 per cent), followed by Africa (67 per cent), Oceania (60 per cent) and Asia (56 per cent), the bureau said.

In addition, it said families with a householder born in Northern America or Europe (both less than 40 per cent) were less likely to include children under 18 than native-born households. (Oceania consists of Australia, New Zealand, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia; Northern America consists of Canada, Bermuda, Greenland, and St. Pierre and Miquelon.) householder The bureau classified a family household of consisting of a householder and one or more people living together who are related to the householder by birth, marriage or adoption.

About 77 per cent of foreign-born households were family households, compared with 65 percent of native-born households, it said. The report also examines differences among foreign-born region-of-birth groups on a wide range of topics that include age, sex, marital status, fertility, period of entry into the United States, naturalisation and citizenship status, language, education, labor force participation, occupation, health insurance coverage, income and poverty.

“There is considerable variation among the different foreign-born groups in household type and composition,” said Elizabeth M. Grieco, chief of the Census Bureau’s Foreign-Born Popu-lation Branch and one of the authors of the report. “This diversity is also seen in the other demographic, social and economic characteristics covered in this report,” she added.

The report says that in 2010, the foreign-born population reached about 40 million and represented 13 percent of the nation, with Latin America and the Caribbean accounting for the largest region-of-birth group. The report says more than half (53 per ent) of all foreign-born residents came from the region.

By comparison, 28 per cent of the foreign-born population was born in Asia, 12 per cent in Europe, four per cent in Africa, two per cent in Northern America and less than one per cent in Oceania. In 2010, 44 percent of all foreign-born residents were naturalized citizens.

Foreign-born residents from Europe (62 percent) and Asia (58 percent) had the highest percent naturalised, while foreign-born residents from Latin America and the Caribbean had the lowest per cent (32 percent), the report said.