Document Type
Research Report
Publication Date
1-1-2013
Abstract
This report provides a descriptive snapshot of selected economic, social, educational, and demographic indicators pertaining to Latinos in Boston. It reflects a commitment by UMass Boston’s Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy to provide periodic updates on the growing Latino population in Massachusetts.
The report on Boston is part of a larger series that covers fourteen other cities, or clusters of cities, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Each report analyzes data from the 2010 American Community Survey (ACS) conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. Data are analyzed by Public Use Microdata Area (PUMA), which consists of a minimum population of 100,000 and is the smallest geographic area publically available for individual-level analysis. The city of Boston comprises five PUMAs. By aggregating them for this report, we are able to arrive at a demographic and economic portrait of Boston’s Latino community.
Since ACS data are collected from a sample of the population, there is some variation associated with each population estimate. In the bar graphs in this report, the ‘I’ that accompanies each bar represents the confidence interval for that estimate; we expect that another sample would generate an estimate within this interval 95% of the time.
In this report, Latinos are compared to non-Latino whites, non-Latino blacks, and Asians for selected demographic, economic, and social characteristics. The number of ethno-racial groups included in a particular analysis may vary; each ethnoracial group is included in the analysis only when the observed sample size is large enough to produce reliable population estimates.
As the largest city in the Commonwealth, Boston is home to an estimated 109,115 Latinos. This represents the largest Latino population in the state, though several other cities have greater concentrations of Latinos. They represent about one-sixth (17.5%) of the city’s population, a smaller share than for whites and blacks but greater than for Asians.
Recommended Citation
Granberry, Phillip; Rustan, Sarah; and Karp, Faye, "Latinos in Massachusetts Selected Areas: Boston" (2013). Gastón Institute Publications. 163.
https://scholarworks.umb.edu/gaston_pubs/163