With an already exploding population growth, Hispanic people will have a growing impact on all policy matters related to the family, and in effect, health care and education, according to a new report.
The Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institute held a forum Nov. 15 in collaboration with the Annie E. Cassey Foundation to discuss trends affecting Hispanic familiesand actions that policymakers can take to strengthen them. “The Hispanic Family in Flux,” a working paper by Roberto Suro, a professor of journalism at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication, was released at the forum.
Suro says the growth of the Hispanic population has already slowed the decline of the two-parent parent family in the United States by addingyoung adults with a higher propensity to marry than their native-born peers, both Latino and non-Latino.
“But immigration is also producing a disproportionate number of Hispanics who are geographically separated from their spouses,” says the report. “The dynamics shaping the Hispanic family are both complex and fluid.”
