An estimated 702,000 Hispanics of Honduran origin resided in the United States in 2011, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Hondurans in this statistical profile are people who self-identified as Hispanics of Honduran origin; this means either they themselves are Honduran immigrants or they trace their family ancestry to Honduras. Hondurans are the ninth-largest population of Hispanic origin living in the United States, accounting for 1.4% of the U.S. Hispanic population in 2011. Mexicans, the nation’s largest Hispanic origin group, constituted 33.5 million, or 64.6%, of the Hispanic population in 2011.1
This statistical profile compares the demographic, income and economic characteristics of the Honduran population with the characteristics of all Hispanics and the U.S. population overall. It is based on tabulations from the 2011 American Community Survey by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. Key facts include:
- Immigration status. About two-thirds of Hondurans (64%) in the United States are foreign born compared with 36% of Hispanics and 13% of the U.S. population overall. Roughly eight-in-ten immigrants from Honduras (78%) arrived in the U.S. in 1990 or later. About two-in-ten Honduran immigrants (22%) are U.S. citizens.
- Language. Nearly half (47%) of Hondurans ages 5 and older speak English proficiently.2 The other 53% of Hondurans report speaking English less than very well, compared with 34% of all Hispanics.
- Age. Hondurans are younger than the U.S. population and slightly older than Hispanics overall. The median age of Hondurans is 28; the median ages of the U.S. population and all Hispanics are 37 and 27, respectively.
- Marital status. Hondurans ages 15 and older are married at a lower rate (36%) than Hispanics overall (43%) and the U.S. population overall (48%).
- Fertility. Less than one-in-ten (8%) Honduran women ages 15 to 44 gave birth in the 12 months prior to this survey. That was equal to the rate for all Hispanic women and slightly higher than the overall rate for U.S. women (6%).
- Regional dispersion. Hondurans are concentrated in the South (58%), mostly in Florida (19%) and Texas (14%), and in the Northeast (21%), mostly in New York (11%).
- Educational attainment. Hondurans have lower levels of education than the Hispanic population overall and the U.S. population overall. Some 8% of Hondurans ages 25 and older—compared with 13% of all U.S. Hispanics and 29% of the overall U.S. population—have obtained at least a bachelor’s degree.
- Income. The median annual personal earnings for Hondurans ages 16 and older were $17,500 in the year prior to the survey, lower than the median earnings for U.S. Hispanics ($20,000) and the U.S. population ($29,000).
- Poverty status. The share of Hondurans who live in poverty, 33%, is higher than the rate for the general U.S. population (16%) and the rate for Hispanics overall (26%).
- Health Insurance. Almost one-half of Hondurans (46%) do not have health insurance compared with 30% of all Hispanics and 15% of the general U.S. population. Additionally, 13% of Hondurans younger than 18 are uninsured.
- Homeownership. The rate of Honduran homeownership (29%) is lower than the rate for all Hispanics (46%) and the 65% rate for the U.S. population as a whole.
About the Data
This statistical profile of Hispanics of Honduran origin is based on the Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS is the largest household survey in the United States, with a sample of about 3 million addresses. The data used for this statistical profile come from 2011 ACS Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS), representing a 1% sample of the U.S. population.
Like any survey, estimates from the ACS are subject to sampling error and (potentially) measurement error. Information on the ACS sampling strategy and associated error is available at http://www.census.gov/acs/www/methodology/methodology_main/. An example of measurement error is that citizenship rates for the foreign born are estimated to be overstated in the Decennial Census and other official surveys, such as the ACS (see Jeffrey Passel. “Growing Share of Immigrants Choosing Naturalization,” Pew Hispanic Center, Washington, D.C. (March 28, 2007)). Finally, estimates from the ACS may differ from the Decennial Census or other Census Bureau surveys due to differences in methodology and data collection procedures (see, for example, http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Downloads/methodology/ASA_nelson.pdf, http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/laborfor/laborfactsheet092209.html and http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/datasources/factsheet.html).
