The Impact of 1996 Welfare Reform on Immigration of Older Persons

Jibum Kim, University of Chicago and NORC

This paper describes 11-year trends (1990-2000) for persons who have been admitted as parents for the five Asian immigrant groups: Chinese, Indian, Korean, Philippine, and Vietnamese. I used INS, Immigrants Admitted to the United State's Series. The number of persons admitted as "immediate relative - parents" category decreased from 1990 to 2000 in all five groups. For immigrants from Philippine, India, and China, there is striking increase in fiscal years 1996 and 1997, and then a sharp decline. For Vietnamese and Korean parent immigrants there is a gradual decrease through the middle and later years of the decade. These findings suggest that the effect of PROWRA was a short-term increase in the number of parents who come to US from China, India, and Philippines, just prior to its implementation, followed by a decline in numbers. There was no apparent effect on Vietnamese and Korean parent immigrants.