Whites To Become Minority In U.S. By 2044, Hispanics Quarter Of Population

White Americans will become a minority in the U.S. by 2044, while Hispanics will make up a quarter of the population, according to a new Brookings Institution analysis of latest U.S. Census Bureau population projections.

By 2044, when white Americans become a minority, the country will consist of a “majority” of minority groups, the so-called “majority-minority,” including Asians, Hispanics, African Americans and multiracial people.

The decline to minority by the white population in 2044 will be caused mostly by lower reproduction rates and ageing.

According to the Brookings Institution report, the country’s white American population is projected to increase slowly until 2025, when it peaks at nearly 200 million. But after 2025, it will undergo sustained decline until 2060 when whites will make up only about 44 percent of the total population.

The report says that “natural decrease, the excess of deaths over births, for this aging population will be the primary component of this decline.”

On the contrary, between 2014 and 2060, the new “majority-minority,” consisting of Asians, Hispanics and multiracial people “will more than double.”

As more white American youths choose to postpone marriage and parenthood, and have fewer offspring, the birth rate of the white population will fall until deaths outnumber births by 2025.

Analysts identify the fall in birth rates among younger white Americans, relative to death rates among older white Americans of the so-called “Baby Boom” generation, as the major factor that will push the decline in the white population. In contrast, higher birth rates among minority populations will drive demographic changes in their favor.

By 2044, an ageing white population would have fallen from 75 percent of U.S. citizens in 2014 to 49.7 percent. The pattern will persist into 2060 when it is projected that white people will make up only about 44 percent of the population.

“The white population is projected to increase modestly until 2025 when it reaches 199,867,000; after that, it will sustain a continued decrease until 2060 when whites will make up only 44 percent of the population. Natural decrease, the excess of deaths over births, for this aging population will be the primary component of this decline.”

Also by 2060, white Americans will make up the majority of the senior population, with 55 percent of people 65 and older being white. But the proportion of minorities among younger Americans will increase from 48 percent in 2014 to 64 percent in 2060.

“Continued racial disparity across generations will occur because of the exit of whites from the younger ages as both old and new minorities take up the slack.”

It is projected that ethnic minorities will outnumber white Americans for the first time in 2044. In the period 2014-2044, the Hispanic population will increase from about 16 percent to 25.1 percent, roughly double the population of African Americans.

In the same period, the population of Asians will double from 4 percent to 7.9 percent, due mostly to increased immigration.

But despite the drastic demographic changes, white Americans will continue to be the single largest ethnic group by 2044. However, all other minority groups added together will form a new “majority minority” population, according to the report.

While the population of Hispanics and Asians will more than double by 2060, the mixed race population will increase by more than threefold, growing at 220 percent. However, mixed-race people will remain the smallest single group.

According to William Frey, senior fellow in the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program, who authored the report, and analyzed the trends in his book Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics are Remaking America, new projections of increase in the Asian population outstrip previous projections due to higher immigration. But the gain for Hispanics is lower than previously projected due to declining birth rates.

The black population will register only a minor increase by 2044; from 12.3 percent, according to the 2010 census, to 12.7 percent.

However, despite the rigid classification of people into pigeonhole racial categories in formal census data, analysts have observed an evolving fluidity of racial self-identification, with about nine million Americans checking multiple racial-ethnic identity categories in the 2010 U.S. Census.

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