Whites will be U.S. minority group by 2042, Census predicts

Whites will be U.S. minority group by 2042, Census predicts

By KAT GLASS ? McClatchy Newspapers ? August 13, 2008

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WASHINGTON ? In a few decades, all Americans will be minorities,

according to U.S. Census Bureau projections to be released Thursday.

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Non-Hispanic whites will drop below half of the population as early as

2042, the projections show. That?s about 10 years earlier than

demographers previously had predicted, said Grayson Vincent, a

demographer for the Census Bureau.

Here?s what?s expected:

?Non-Hispanic whites, who are two-thirds of the population today, are

older, dying off faster and producing fewer children than other

groups, Vincent said. By 2050, they?ll number 203 million in a nation

of 439 million.

?Hispanics are projected to triple by 2050, when they?ll be nearly a

third (133 million) of the population. Spurring Hispanic growth is the

group?s large natural increase ? birth rate minus death rate ? which

Vincent attributed mainly to its youth and fertility. Immigration is

an important but lesser factor, she said.

?The black population is projected to increase by just 1 percentage

point, from 14% this year to 15% (66 million) in 2050. At that point,

Hispanics will outnumber blacks by 2-to-1, the report said.

?The Asian population will grow from 5% to 9% of the population (41

million) by 2050, according to the projections.

?American Indians and Alaska Natives are projected to rise from 1.6%

to 2% (9 million) of the population.

All the changes will show up first and fastest among children, less

than half of whom will be non-Hispanic whites by 2023.

Policymakers need to start adapting now, demographers and race

scholars said, especially in education.

?It?s a different kind of student body than we?ve known during the

?50s and ?60s and ?70s, when a lot of our education policies were

shaped,? said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings

Institution, a Washington research center.

?If we don?t invest in educating and training African-American kids,

immigrants and Latino kids, we won?t have a middle class,? said Mark

Sawyer, the director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity

and Politics at the University of California at Los Angeles. ?We?ll

have a very, very poor disposable class that?s largely black or

brown.?

The face of America will look different, too.

?I think the American complexion will be a multiplicity of complexions

rather than one complexion,? said Gilberto Cardenas, director of the

Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame in

Indiana.

The study predicts that the number of Americans who say they?re

biracial or multiracial will more than triple from 5 million to 16

million people by 2050.

Some sociologists already have scrapped ?minority? for terms such as

?dominant? and ?nondominant group? to discuss race and ethnicity,

Sawyer said.

Noting a recent poll in which half of whites opposed federal aid to

minorities, Cardenas? colleague John Koval joked that they should

think twice. ?Pretty soon they?re going to be the minority,? he said.

On Aug 13, 10:16 pm, freddy <melbedewy1...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Whites will be U.S. minority group by 2042, Census predicts

>

> By KAT GLASS ? McClatchy Newspapers ? August 13, 2008

>

> Read Comments(1)

> Recommend

> Print this page

> E-mail this article

>

> Share this article:

> Del.icio.us

> Facebook

> Digg

> Reddit

> Newsvine

> What?s this?

>

> WASHINGTON ? In a few decades, all Americans will be minorities,

> according to U.S. Census Bureau projections to be released Thursday.

> Advertisement

>

> Non-Hispanic whites will drop below half of the population as early as

> 2042, the projections show. That?s about 10 years earlier than

> demographers previously had predicted, said Grayson Vincent, a

> demographer for the Census Bureau.

>

> Here?s what?s expected:

>

> ?Non-Hispanic whites, who are two-thirds of the population today, are

> older, dying off faster and producing fewer children than other

> groups, Vincent said. By 2050, they?ll number 203 million in a nation

> of 439 million.

>

> ?Hispanics are projected to triple by 2050, when they?ll be nearly a

> third (133 million) of the population. Spurring Hispanic growth is the

> group?s large natural increase ? birth rate minus death rate ? which

> Vincent attributed mainly to its youth and fertility. Immigration is

> an important but lesser factor, she said.

>

> ?The black population is projected to increase by just 1 percentage

> point, from 14% this year to 15% (66 million) in 2050. At that point,

> Hispanics will outnumber blacks by 2-to-1, the report said.

>

> ?The Asian population will grow from 5% to 9% of the population (41

> million) by 2050, according to the projections.

>

> ?American Indians and Alaska Natives are projected to rise from 1.6%

> to 2% (9 million) of the population.

>

> All the changes will show up first and fastest among children, less

> than half of whom will be non-Hispanic whites by 2023.

>

> Policymakers need to start adapting now, demographers and race

> scholars said, especially in education.

>

> ?It?s a different kind of student body than we?ve known during the

> ?50s and ?60s and ?70s, when a lot of our education policies were

> shaped,? said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings

> Institution, a Washington research center.

>

> ?If we don?t invest in educating and training African-American kids,

> immigrants and Latino kids, we won?t have a middle class,? said Mark

> Sawyer, the director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity

> and Politics at the University of California at Los Angeles. ?We?ll

> have a very, very poor disposable class that?s largely black or

> brown.?

>

> The face of America will look different, too.

>

> ?I think the American complexion will be a multiplicity of complexions

> rather than one complexion,? said Gilberto Cardenas, director of the

> Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame in

> Indiana.

>

> The study predicts that the number of Americans who say they?re

> biracial or multiracial will more than triple from 5 million to 16

> million people by 2050.

>

> Some sociologists already have scrapped ?minority? for terms such as

> ?dominant? and ?nondominant group? to discuss race and ethnicity,

> Sawyer said.

>

> Noting a recent poll in which half of whites opposed federal aid to

> minorities, Cardenas? colleague John Koval joked that they should

> think twice. ?Pretty soon they?re going to be the minority,? he said.

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In a Generation, Minorities May Be the U.S. Majority

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By SAM ROBERTS

Published: August 13, 2008

Ethnic and racial minorities will comprise a majority of the nation?s

population in a little more than a generation, according to new Census

Bureau projections, a transformation that is occurring faster than

anticipated just a few years ago.

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The census calculates that by 2042, Americans who identify themselves

as Hispanic, black, Asian, American Indian, Native Hawaiian and

Pacific Islander will together outnumber non-Hispanic whites. Four

years ago, officials had projected the shift would come in 2050.

The main reason for the accelerating change is significantly higher

birthrates among immigrants. Another factor is the influx of

foreigners, rising from about 1.3 million annually today to more than

2 million a year by midcentury, according to projections based on

current immigration policies.

?No other country has experienced such rapid racial and ethnic

change,? said Mark Mather, a demographer with the Population Reference

Bureau, a research organization in Washington.

The latest figures, which are being released on Thursday, are

predicated on current and historical trends, which can be thrown awry

by several variables, including prospective overhauls of immigration

policies and sudden increases in refugees.

A decade ago, census demographers estimated that the nation?s

population, which topped 300 million in 2006, would not surpass 400

million until sometime after midcentury. Now, they are projecting that

the population will top 400 million in 2039 and reach 439 million in

2050.

So-called minorities, the Census Bureau projects, will constitute a

majority of the nation?s children under 18 by 2023 and of working-age

Americans by 2039.

For the first time, both the number and the proportion of non-Hispanic

whites, who now account for 66 percent of the population, will

decline, starting around 2030. By 2050, their share will dip to 46

percent.

Higher mortality rates among older native-born white Americans and

higher birthrates rates among immigrants and their children are

already driving ethnic and racial disparities.

?A momentum is built into this as a result of past immigration,? said

Jeffrey S. Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center. ?In

the 1970s, ?80s and ?90s, there were more Hispanic immigrants than

births. This decade, there are more births than immigrants. Almost

regardless of what you assume about future immigration, the country

will be more Hispanic and Asian.?

With the Census Bureau forecasting even more immigrants, other

demographers estimate that the proportion of foreign-born Americans,

now about 12 percent, could surpass the 1910 historic high of nearly

15 percent by about 2025 and may approach 20 percent in 2050.

According to the new forecast, by 2050, the number of Hispanic people

will nearly triple, to 133 million from 47 million, to account for 30

percent of Americans, compared with 15 percent today.

People who say they are Asian, with their ranks soaring to 41 million

from 16 million, will make up more than 9 percent of the population,

up from 5 percent.

More than three times as many people are expected to identify

themselves as multiracial ? 16 million, accounting for nearly 4

percent of the population.

The population of people who define themselves a black is projected to

rise to 66 million from 41 million, but increase its overall share by

barely two percentage points, to 15 percent.

?What?s happening now in terms of increasing diversity probably is

unprecedented,? said Campbell Gibson, a retired census demographer.

Several states, including California and Texas, have already reached

the point where members of minorities are in the majority.

?Within the conventional definition of race, of white, black, Asian,

minority vs. non-minority, this is a big change,? said David G.

Waddington, chief of the Census Bureau?s population projections

branch.

All the projections are subject to changing cultural definitions. The

share of Americans who identify themselves as white, regardless of

their ethnicity, will remain largely unchanged, declining from less

than 80 percent in 2010 to about 76 percent when the majority-minority

benchmark is reached in 2042.

?The way people report race 20 or 30 years from now may be very

different,? Dr. Waddington pointed out.

The Census Bureau?s projections are likely to fuel debates over

immigration policy, overpopulation and the changing electorate, and

recall earlier eras when the Irish, the Italians and Eastern European

Jews were not universally considered as whites. As recently as the

1960s, Hispanic people were not counted separately by the census and

Asian Indians were classified as white.

William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, said

that by the 2028 presidential election, racial and ethnic minorities

will constitute a majority of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 for

the first time.

Two years later, when all the baby boomers will have turned 65, nearly

20 percent of Americans, compared with fewer than 13 percent today,

will be over 65. By 2050, about 89 million Americans will be in that

group, more than double the number today.

?In 2020, the burdens of seniors to the white working-aged population

become larger than the burdens of children,? Dr. Frey said.

The changes projected by the census point toward a nation in which the

older population will be whiter (deaths will outnumber births among

whites, beginning in the 2020s) and where black Americans will still

have slightly higher rates of infant mortality and lower life

expectancy.

Steven A. Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration

Studies, which favors limits on immigration, expressed concern about

congestion and other issues related to population growth driven by the

foreign-born.

Gregory Rodriguez, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a

public policy institute, argued that while ?assimilation became a

dirty word in the 1960s and ?70s,? America has always been evolving

and becoming enriched by new cultures, whether from Europe or from

South America and Asia.

Indeed, Dr. Gibson, the retired census demographer, once estimated

that in 1492 about 96 percent of the inhabitants of what is now the

United States were American Indian and the rest of Polynesian origin.

Well before the English landed in Jamestown, the Spanish became

America?s first minority.

When the first census was conducted in 1790, about 64 percent of the

people counted were white, a bit more than half of whom were of

English origin. By 1900, about 9 in 10 Americans were non-Hispanic

white, mostly of European ancestry.

The share of Americans who can trace their roots to immigrants

directly from Europe has been shrinking. The federal Office of

Management and Budget now defines whites as descendants of ?the

original peoples of Europe, North Africa or the Middle East.? Hispanic

or Latino people, according to the same government agency, are of

?Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American or other

Spanish culture.?

?We may be using the same words 50 years from now,? said Mr. Passel,

of the Pew Center, ?but I feel confident in saying they?ll mean

something different.?