{"id":14188,"date":"2014-09-30T07:00:41","date_gmt":"2014-09-30T12:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/5-facts-about-indian-americans\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:21:52","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:21:52","slug":"5-facts-about-indian-americans","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/09\/30\/5-facts-about-indian-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"5 facts about Indian Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi received a rapturous reception<\/a> in New York City on Sunday, speaking to more than 19,000 people — largely Indian Americans, according to The New York Times — at Madison Square Garden. During his packed five-day visit<\/a>, Modi also addressed the UN General Assembly and met with a bevy of U.S. business leaders Monday morning before heading to an “intimate dinner” with President Obama.<\/p>\n\n

This is the first official trip\u00a0to the U.S. for Modi, who was elected in May. His visit not only marks an effort to repair strained U.S.-India relations, but also spotlights the growing presence of Indians and Indian Americans in American life. Two sitting governors<\/a> (Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal and South Carolina’s Nikki Haley, both Republicans) are of Indian ancestry; so are\u00a0Preet Bharara<\/a>, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Neel Kashkari<\/a>, former Treasury Department official and current GOP candidate for California governor.<\/p>\n\n

In 2012, the Pew Research Center released a pair of reports on Asian Americans — one focused on demographics and attitudes<\/a>, the other on religion<\/a>. The\u00a0reports, which drew from 2010 census data and 2012 survey results, included much information about the country’s nearly 3.2 million Indian Americans; we’ve selected a sampling of facts from both\u00a0reports:<\/p>\n\n

\u00a0Many Indian Americans are recent arrivals.<\/strong>\u00a087.2% of Indian-American adults in 2010 were foreign-born, the highest percentage among the six largest Asian-American groups; 37.6% of those had been in the U.S. 10 years or less. One consequence of so many Indian Americans having arrived so recently: Only 56.2% of adults were U.S. citizens, the lowest share among the six subgroups studied in detail.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

\u00a0Indian Americans are among the most highly educated racial or ethnic groups in the U.S.<\/strong> 70% of Indian Americans aged 25 and older had college degrees in 2010, by far the highest rate among the six Asian-American groups studied and 2.5 times the rate among the overall U.S. population. More recent (2013) data from the American Community Survey provides more detail: 40.6% of Indian Americans 25 and older have graduate or professional degrees, and 32.3% have bachelor’s degrees; an additional 10.4% have some college education. One likely factor: the large segment of Indian Americans who entered the country under the H1-B visa program, which allow highly skilled foreign workers in designated “specialty occupations” to work in the U.S. In 2011, for example, 72,438 Indians received H1-B visas, 56% of all such visas granted that year.<\/p>\n\n

\"FT_14.09.29_religionIndian\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

\u00a0Not all Indian Americans are Hindu.<\/strong> Only about half (51%) of Indian Americans are Hindu, though nearly all Asian-American Hindus (93%) trace their heritage to India, according to our 2012 survey. 18% of Indian Americans identified themselves as Christians (as both Haley and Jindal do); 10% said they were Muslim. The religious shares of Indian Americans are\u00a0markedly different from those of India itself (where an estimated\u00a079.5% of the population is Hindu and only 2.5% is Christian, according to Pew Research’s 2012 Global Religious Landscape<\/a> report), reflecting differential migration patterns.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

\u00a0Indian Americans generally are well-off.<\/strong> Median annual\u00a0household income for Indian Americans in 2010 was $88,000, much higher than for all Asian Americans ($66,000) and all U.S. households ($49,800) — perhaps not surprising, given their high education levels. Only 9% of adult Indian Americans live in poverty, compared with 12% of Asian Americans overall and 13% of the U.S. population. In 2010, by our analysis, 28% of Indian American worked in science and engineering fields; according to the 2013 American Community Survey, more than two-thirds (69.3%) of Indian Americans 16 and older were in management, business, science and arts occupations.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

\u00a0Indian Americans lean left.<\/strong> 65% of Indian Americans were\u00a0Democrats or leaned toward the Democrats, making them the Asian-American subgroup most likely to identify with the Democratic Party. An identical share of Indian Americans approved of Obama’s job performance in 2012.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even among Asian Americans, Indian Americans stand out as better educated, higher earning and more Democratic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"apple_news_api_pending":"1713063859","relatedPosts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0},"categories":[150,138],"bylines":[842],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[517,519],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-14188","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","category-asian-americans","category-high-skilled-immigration","bylines-drew-desilver","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-religion","research-teams-social-trends"],"label":"Short 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