New population projections by the US Census Bureau show that whites will become a minority by 2044. The US will be home to a youthful, growing minority population juxtaposed against an aging, slow-growing, and soon to be declining white population.
The new projections from the Census Bureau show two trends for American’s population: a long-term decline for the nation’s white population – which will make up 49.7 percent of the population by 2044 – and a growth of minorities such as Asians, Latinos, and multiracial persons.
In fact, the Latino, Asian, and multiracial populations are all expected to double in size over the next 40 years. Specifically, Latinos are projected to make up 25.1 percent of the US population in 2044, doubling that of African-Americans.
“The pace of U.S. population growth is slowing, and the population continues to become more diverse,” Kenneth Johnson, senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy, told Al Jazeera America. “This will produce a rich tapestry of demographic change in the U.S. over the next several decades.”
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The other emerging trend is the aging of the white population, which by 2060 will make up just 44 percent of the population. Of that, 55 percent will be 65 years and older. And by 2027, more than half of America’s twenty-somethings will be racial minorities. During the 2028 presidential election, 40 percent of all eligible voters will be racial minorities.
The population changes are being brought about by higher birth rates among minority populations, mixed households, and more interracial marriages. Against those trends are the declining growth rates and rapid aging of the white population – the result of both lower birth rates among younger white Americans, and the advancing age of the Baby Boom generation.
“Thirty percent all grandparents in America have a grandchild of a different race or ethnicity, and the diversity in this country is growing in so many ways, we are just starting to get a grasp on those changes,” Guy Garcia, president of New Mainstream Initiatives for Ethnifacts, told Latin Post.
“Gay parents, when they adopt, there is a high rate of multicultural adoptions. We have all these new variation and permutations of the American family. It’s going to continue to happen, and the highest growth is coming from people of color, but they are mixing and merging and having children with people of every race, and it is going to continue to be that way.”
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Garcia said that technology and social media, with its instantaneous speed and global reach, is enabling new ways of expression for inter-ethnic communities and communities that never existed before.
“That hyper-connected future includes Ambiculturals – people of colors who are retaining the values and flavors of their cultural origins as well as their American sensibilities, and fluidly exploring and advancing opportunities of both,” Garcia said.
Garcia said that in the 2010 US Census, nine million people checked multiple identification boxes. They might have checked white, Hispanic or other, and even the Census chief, Robert Groves, said they weren’t capturing how people see themselves.
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Garcia said self-identification is starting to shift, with some people saying they are 100 percent Latino, Asian, or African-American, as well as 100 percent American.
Paul Taylor in his book 'The Next America' said the changes will produce generational competition in future decades over resources and government priorities. And according to the US Census data, later in the 21st century there will be no majority demographic group in the United States.