A new report from the U.S. Census Bureau finds that in the 2008-to-2102 period there were nearly 40 million foreign-born people living in the United States. Of these, 1.6 million, or 4 percent, were born in Africa. The number of African-born people in the United States has doubled nearly every decade since 1970 with the largest growth in recent years.
The largest number of African-born people living in the United States were from Nigeria. Ethiopia was the nation of birth for the second largest group of the African-born people in the U.S.
The African-born population of the United States is a highly educated group. More than 40 percent of the African-born U.S. population has graduated from a four-year college, compared to 28 percent of the total foreign-born population, and 29 percent of the entire U.S. adult population. More than 60 percent of Nigerians and 57 percent of South Africans living in the United States have a four-year college degree.
Only 12 percent of the African-born U.S. population has not completed high school, compared to 31.5 percent of all foreign-born people living in the U.S.
The report, The Foreign-Born Population From Africa, 2008-2012, may be downloaded by clicking here.
