The Missing Children: Mortality and Fertility in a Southeast Asian Refugee Population

Abstract

This research presents the age-sex structures of the refugee populations that arrived in the United States from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam from 1975 through 1986. All three populations are young, but their age-sex structures vary in ways that confirm what is known anecdotally about their experiences before and during flight and in the refugee camps awaiting resettlement. Over time, the age-sex composition of the arriving refugee cohorts has shifted in ways that may indicate changes in factors influencing their migration. In the United States, available data indicate very high fertility in the early years after arrival. Even if their fertility falls rapidly, the refugees’ age structure will lead to a generation of rapid growth.