We are a young population. Asians had a median age of 30 years in 1990, younger than the national median of 33 years. Only 6 percent of Asians were 65 years old and older compared with 13 percent for the total population. The Japanese were the eldest of the Asian populations with a median age of 36 years, in part because fewer Japanese were foreign born. The Hmong and Cambodian, with their large proportions of recent immigrants were the youngest Asians with median age of 13 years and 19 years, respectively.
Immigrant populations tend to have higher fertility than native populations.
In 1990, Asian males were younger than Asian females, with median ages of 29 years and 31 years, respectively, in part because females tend to live longer. Our families are larger than the average American family. The average Asian family had 3.8 persons in 1990, larger than the average of 3.2 persons for all U.S. families. Among Asian groups, Hmong had the largest family size with 6.6 persons, and Japanese the smallest family size with 3.1 persons. Other groups with more than four person persons per family were Filipino, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian.