All recent US population growth comes from people of color, new census estimates show
As we await the final 2020 census statistics for America’s race and ethnic populations (due later this summer), newly released Census Bureau estimates compiled independently of the 2020 census suggest something unprecedented: The 2010s could be the first decade when the nation’s white population registered an absolute loss.
These new estimates show annual population changes by race and ethnicity between July 2010 and July 2020. They indicate that, for each year since 2016, the nation’s white population dropped in size. Thus, all of U.S. population growth from 2016 to 2020 comes from gains in people of color.
These statistics extend and update a trend revealed in data published last year, and further emphasize why the diversity profile of the U.S. population is rising rapidly. This is especially the case for the nation’s younger population, which experienced the greatest white population losses. The statistics also imply that, as the white population ages and declines further, racial and ethnic diversity will be the hallmark demographic feature of America’s younger generations, including Gen Z and those that follow.
Earlier population estimates have shown that the 2010s decade—especially its later years—was one of historically low population growth. This was the result of declining fertility, increased mortality, and a slowdown in immigration from abroad. The former two trends are especially characteristic of the nation’s white population, who are aging more rapidly than other groups.
On a state level, 30 states lost white population over the 2016-2020 period. The greatest losses were registered by California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, where white out-migration accentuated the decline. Among the 20 states that gained white population over this period were those in growing parts of the South and West, including Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah, Colorado, Tennessee, Texas, and Idaho.
In contrast, all states except one (Hawaii) exhibited 2016-to-2020 gains for their combined populations of color. This helped to reduce or counter overall losses in states that registered white population declines. Among the 30 states that lost white population over this period, 18 reported overall gains. For example, California’s loss of 631,000 white residents was more than countered by gains of 850,000 people of color.
The other demographic component that favors nonwhite over white groups is immigration. Over the 2010-to-2019 period, Latino or Hispanic and Asian groups registered substantially higher levels of immigration than white people, contributing to their overall growth. Still, it should be noted that among all nonwhite groups except Asian Americans, immigration contributes less to their growth than natural increase. Among Latino or Hispanic people, gains from natural increase were more than three times those of immigration.
Levels of immigration and natural increase were lower overall in the decade’s last four years than was the case earlier due to more restrictive immigration, lower fertility, and a rise in the number of deaths, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. These factors contributed to increasingly smaller gains for each nonwhite group and greater white population losses. Still, particularly in these later years, the nation was dependent on people of color, especially Latino and Hispanic and Asian Americans, for their contributions to overall population growth.
SOURCE ⇒ BROOKINGS
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