Bhutanese doing well in US: PEW Research

In a decade since the resettlement process begun, the Bhutanese resettlement in the US has made positive mark, despite challenges and hindrances – a new report has revealed.

The report by Pew Research has revealed that despite a very small population (less than 1%), the presence of Bhutanese among the Asian-American population has become phenomenal success story. The research likely to include those Bhutanese who came under resettlement and directly from Bhutan.

The research pointed out that around 9% of the Bhutanese in US have attained at least bachelor’s degree. If we expect the population of Bhutanese-American to be over 120,000, we have not over 12000 graduates with bachelor’s degree. This number was until 2015, which by now should have increase substantially.

Bhutanese population is among the least to speak English proficiently – partly because of the large old-age population who had never attend formal education in their life.

Bhutanese are not in the lower earning brackets but their poverty rate among them is one of the highest. Compared to 15.1% American national poverty rate, one-in-three Bhutanese live under poverty. The high poverty rate in 2015 must have been due to recently arrived Bhutanese under resettlement program and were yet to find job.

Only 8% of the Bhutanese population are now US born – 92% are foreign born: either in Nepal or Bhutan. Of them only 6% have taken the US citizenship by 2015.