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Filipinos Have Lowest Poverty Rate Among Asians In U.S., Report Shows
By
Benedict Dimapindan
January 28, 2005
The percentage of Filipinos living below the poverty line is
the lowest among all Asian groups in the United States, according
to a recent report issued by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The report, “We the People: Asians in the United States,” was
released in December and detailed the socioeconomic landscape
of Asians nationwide based on 2000 census data. It found that
only 6.3 percent of the country’s 1.8 million Filipinos,
the second largest Asian demographic after Chinese, failed to
meet the poverty threshold.
This stands in a stark contrast to the reality of destitution
for Filipinos across the Pacific, back in their homeland.
The annual poverty threshold in America for family of four was
listed as $17,029. Conversely, in the Philippines – the
world’s 12th-most populated nation – the annual per
capita poverty line is just 12,267 pesos –– or $222.79,
according to a report issued Tuesday by the National Statistical
Coordination Board, the Philippines’ governmental body
responsible for policy making and coordination on statistical
matters. Fully 24.7 percent of the country’s 86 million
people couldn’t even measure up to that line.
“The latest official poverty data indicate that in 2003,
about 4.0 million families or 23.5 million Filipinos, [about]
a quarter of the country’s total population, were…straining
to make ends meet,” NSCB Secretary-General Romulo A. Virola
said in a press release.
The disparity in poverty statistics between the two countries
is seemingly as vast as the ocean that divides them. One significant
factor explaining the contrast is U.S. immigration policy, said
Catherine Ceniza Choy, an associate professor of Asian American
Studies at UC Berkeley.
The 1965 passage of a set of amendments to the Immigration and
Nationality Act – also known as the 1952 McCarran-Walter
Act – reversed the decades-long trend of exclusionary immigration
practices by the United States. It lifted
the national origins quota system and established the allocation
of immigrant visas on a first come, first served basis, with
a preference “for relatives of U.S. citizens and permanent
resident aliens (for the reunification of families) and for persons
with special occupational skills, abilities, or training (needed
in the United States).”
Thus, it paved the way for an unprecedented wave of arrivals
from Mexico, Latin America and Asia, including the Philippines.
“After 1965, U.S. immigration policies shape Asian migrant
streams and we see the arrival of highly skilled professional
workers,” Ceniza Choy said. “That’s not to
say that all migrant Filipino workers are professional. But for
example, the U.S. professional nursing shortage brought in a
stream of nurses from the Philippines.
“So the poverty disparity is partly a result of those
policies attracting highly skilled laborers who’ll work
in urban areas where work is in high demand and in occupations
that pay more, like nursing and physical therapy.”
And those immigrant workers from the Philippines have certainly
made an impact on the American labor force. Filipino women have
the highest participation rate – 65.2 percent – among
all Asians in the U.S. work force, according the U.S. Census
Bureau report. At 71 percent, Filipino rank third behind Asian
Indians and Pakistanis. Filipinos also boast the third highest
median family income, averaging $65,189 per household. Japanese
and Asian Indians finished first and second, respectively.
“Since 1972, President [Ferdinand] Marcos inaugurated
an export-oriented economy of goods and labor,” Ceniza
Choy said. “To this day we still see the export of domestic
workers, entertainers and construction workers to other parts
of Asia, Europe and the Middle East. The United States tends
to bring in more professional laborers.”
The report also showed that 87.3 percent of Filipinos had at
least a high school diploma – the highest rate across the
entire U.S. Asian population – and 43.8 percent held a
bachelor’s degree or more.
“Filipinos and Filipino Americans view education as a
means of social mobility,” Ceniza Choy said. “So
the first generation Filipino Americans place a strong emphasis
on education for the second generation. That’s not necessarily
different from any other immigrant group.
“But culturally, in a historical context, in the late 19th
Century wealthy land owners in the Philippines sent their sons
and daughters abroad to study professions – medicine, law – in
Europe, particularly Spain, and later in the United States. This
pattern continued as a sign of elite status. Culturally, we regard
education highly in part because of its legacy of elite status,
of solidifying elite positions by giving their children an education
abroad.”
Contact Benedict Dimapindan at bend1@stanford.edu
