The Chinese American population has increased rapidly over the past decade, and has shown greater diversity and even bimodalism, a new study showed.
Through a non-profit-academic partnership, the National Council of Chinese Americans (NCCA) and Asian American Studies Program (AAST) at University of Maryland on Thursday released a new snapshot of changing features of Chinese American communities.
Up to 2009, the total population of Chinese Americans has risen to around 3.64 million, constituting 1.2 percent of the entire U.S. population, said the study titled "A New Profile of Chinese Americans in a New Century."
The Chinese American population increased 33.3 percent during the period between 2000 and 2009, according to the study, which based its analysis on data from Census Bureau's "2009 American Community Survey" and other Census data.
"We are talking about a time period in which China is also rising as a national power and international player," Larry Shinagawa, director of the AAST, said at a press conference in Washington, D.C.
"We are seeing them become mayors. For the very first time in recorded history, we now have a mayor of San Francisco who is Chinese American. We have congresspersons who are Chinese Americans," he said. "What we are seeing is that Chinese Americans are going to the forefront of politics, economics, business, non-profit and education."
The findings of this study showed four general themes of the Chinese American communities: diversity, concentration, bimodalism, and low returns on investments.
"Even though Chinese Americans have similarities in core ancestry, set of languages, Asian history, and American history, the Chinese American community warrants a more nuanced and in-depth understanding of its diversity," said the study.
It found that Chinese Americans are diversified in terms of place of birth, naturalization and citizenship, marriage pattern and others.
Among Chinese Americans, 35.9 percent were born in the United States, while 64.1 percent were foreign-born.
Nearly seven out of ten Chinese Americans are U.S. citizens. A high proportion of foreign-born Chinese Americans are naturalized and rank third among Asian Americans in the percentage naturalized, the study showed.
Chinese Americans tend to be highly concentrated and cluster in residence, educational attainment and college selection, occupational fields, and industries.
More than half of all Chinese Americans reside in the two states of California and New York, and they cluster in industries associated with healthcare, food services, manufacturing, and professional or scientific fields.
The study also highlighted that Chinese Americans are "bimodal" in terms of levels of education and occupation.
While Chinese Americans ages 25 and older have twice as many college degree holders as the general population, this is offset by a significant presence of more Chinese Americans who earn less than a high school diploma than the general population, according to the study.
In terms of employment, the study found that some Chinese Americans cluster within white-collar professional jobs such as computer software developers, managers and administrators, and accountants and auditors. On the other hand, others are concentrated in blue-collar working class jobs such as cooks, waiters or waitresses, and cashiers.
"Many Chinese Americans attain high levels of education and occupational status but lag in their income returns," it noted.
While Chinese Americans have higher median household income and per capita income than that of the general population, they consistently make lower incomes than non-Hispanic Whites in every level of education, it added.