Wednesday, December 12, 2012

People of Color Soon to be a Majority in the United States

December 12, 2012

Census Officials, Citing Increasing Diversity, Say U.S. Will Be a ‘Plurality Nation’

By MICHAEL COOPER
New York Times

The term “minority,” at least as used to describe racial and ethnic groups in the United States, may need to be retired or rethought soon: by the end of this decade, according to Census Bureau projections released Wednesday, no single racial or ethnic group will constitute a majority of children under 18. And in about three decades, no single group will constitute a majority of the country as a whole.

As the United States grows more diverse, the Census Bureau reported, it is becoming a “plurality nation.”

“The next half century marks key points in continuing trends — the U.S. will become a plurality nation, where the non-Hispanic white population remains the largest single group, but no group is in the majority,” the bureau’s acting director, Thomas L. Mesenbourg, said in a statement.

The new projections — the first set based on the 2010 Census — paint a picture of a nation whose post-recession population is growing more slowly than anticipated, where the elderly are expected to make up a growing share of the populace, and that is rapidly becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. All of these trends promise to shape the nation’s politics, economics and culture in the decades to come.

The nation’s total population is not expected to hit 400 million until 2051, which is 12 years later than the bureau previously projected, said Jennifer Ortman, a demographer with the Census Bureau. The prediction that the nation’s population will grow more slowly reflects the bureau’s projections that there will be fewer births and fewer immigrants coming to the United States, based on recent trends.

Caring for an aging population, and paying for it, will continue to pose challenges. By 2060 one in five people in the United States will be 65 or older, the Census projects, up from one in seven now. The share of the population that is between 18 and 64 — considered working age — is expected to decline to 56.9 percent in 2060 from 62.7 percent now. In 2056, there are projected to be more people 65 and over than under 18 for the first time.

The diversity of the nation’s children is increasing even faster than was previously expected, said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. “When the 2020 Census comes around, we’re going to have a majority-minority child population,” he said in an interview.

The Census Bureau expects that moment to come in 2018, several years earlier than it previously predicted. The bureau predicts that by 2043 — which is a year later than it previously projected — there will be no single majority group in the country as a whole, as the share of non-Hispanic whites falls below 50 percent.

The population of non-Hispanic whites is expected to shrink both as a share of the population and in raw numbers, the bureau predicted: it is projected to peak in 2024 at 199.6 million, and then to fall by nearly 20.6 million through 2060.

The Hispanic population is expected to more than double during that time, to 128.8 million in 2060 from 53.3 million now. In 2060 nearly one in three residents will be Hispanic, up from about one in six now. (People who identify themselves as Hispanic may be any race.) The black population is expected to increase to 61.8 million from 41.2 million over the same period, with its share of the population rising slightly. And the Asian population is expected to double, to 34.4 million in 2060 from 15.9 million now, with its share of the population climbing to 8.1 percent from 5.1 percent.

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