In the latest sign of the nation’s shifting racial and ethnic composition, births to Asian, black and Hispanic women in the United States are on the verge of surpassing births to non-Hispanic whites.
Minorities accounted for 48 percent of all births in the nation in the 12 months that ended in July 2008. While it will most likely take years for health statisticians to confirm precisely when the 50 percent benchmark will have been reached, demographers said it could occur this year. Depending on variables like the recession, which has depressed birth rates, it will almost certainly happen within a year or two, they said.
“It looks like ”˜majority’ births would drop below 50 percent around 2012,” said Carl Haub, senior demographer for the Population Reference Bureau.
This is a major census year, so all kinds of interesting trends may come out, but surely this inexorable trend is one of them, The old Anglo majority will soon no longer be the majority.
A number of significant facts stood out for me. Among them, “As recently as 1990, non-Hispanic whites accounted for 2/3 of births.” Wow, that’s a big swing in only 20 years.
The key factor is the big rise in the Hispanic population, which has already surpassed blacks as the largest minority group. It seems remarkable that there are 10 Hispanic births today for every Hispanic death. That certainly portends a continuing rise in the Hispanic proportion of the nation, quite apart from the immigration factor.
And it was interesting to find out that just 39% of young Hispanic children (under age 4) have two native-born parents. That underlines just have massive have been the number of Hispanic immigrants, legal and illegal, in recent years. That suggests that Hispanic ministry ought to be a very high priority for a lot more denominations and parachurch groups than it is.
David Handy+
Father Handy makes an important point, not just for the work of the Church, but for the work of the secular systems of government also. The points in the post and in his comment have profound impacts on the nature of the country and its future. Those who focus entirely on the illegal nature of a substantial portion of Hispanic immigration risk missing the effects of the rapidly growing Hispanic culture in America. In 20 years, the illegal immigration furor will be behind us, but the nature of our culture will be significantly Hispanicized. This will have plusses and minuses. But it will be a reality.
I suspect these ‘non-white’ populations will intermarry with ‘white’ populations like crazy. In a few decades, probably Hispanics will be counted as white.
I still think the main racial divide, long-term, is black/white.