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Latinos in the District of Columbia: Demographics *
Age and sex structure, skewed toward youth and males, is consistent with newly arrived immigrants:
The overall median age for DC Latinos is 28.3 years, for Latino males 27.9 years and Latina females 28.8 years; Latinos demonstrate a younger age structure than other racial/ethnic groups in the District. Latinos relatively young age structure indicates a high proportion of children under 18 and therefore a higher dependency ratio. Children represented half of the net undercounted population in 1990.
Wide disparity in Latino sex ratios is possibly indicative of higher differential undercount among Latino males, especially in the 1970 and 1980 Censuses, possibly due to undocumented status and "missed persons" categories. However, the Latino sex ratio for 1990 and 2000 is representative of the intensification of immigration from Central America, when men initially migrated alone with the family following later.
Households and families of Latino are larger with more dependent children:
The size of Latino households and Latino families is greater than the average for the District. The 1990 and 2000 Censuses identified two types of households (family households and non-family households) and three types of families (married couple families, families of male-headed households, and families of female-headed households). There were 20,068 Latino households in 2000, of which 70 percent were family households and 30 percent were non-family households.
In 2000, there were 30,676 Latino families in DC. The average Latino household size was 2.98 and average Latino family size was 3.71. Of the total number of Latino family households, 60 percent were married couple households, 16 percent were families of male-headed households (no spouse present) and 24 percent were families of female-headed households (no spouse present). Latino married couples are almost twice as likely to have dependent children, the reverse of African-American and White married couples.
* Information published in this section has been taken from the US Census (Annual Estimates of the Population by Sex, Race and Hispanic or Latino Origin for District of Columbia: September 2004) and research conducted by the District's Council on Latino Agencies (CLA), a non-profit organization representing several community organizations based in Washington, DC. CLA has granted OLA permission to publish this information.
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