ashbeeigh
03-12-2010, 12:49 PM
In honor of what looks to be my last day of unemployment....I present to you an article about the shift in minority/majorityism.
White Women Influencing Shift to Minority-Majority Nation
By JAMES WARREN
Published: March 11, 2010
James Warren is a columnist for the Chicago News Cooperative.
Chicago Report
The Chicago report features coverage of public affairs, culture, lifestyle and sports in the region and is produced by the Chicago News Cooperative, a non-profit news organization. We invite your comments at [email protected].
Related
Sarah Elder is obvious evidence of a rotten economy, laid off as a social worker at a Park Ridge residential facility for foster children.
But as she makes ends meet, working at a North Side bakery cafe while taking classes at night, Ms. Elder, 26, is a member of a little-known, declining demographic in the Chicago area: non-Hispanic white children and white women of prime child-bearing age.
It has long been assumed that the United States will be a minority-majority nation by mid-century, with the cultural and political ramifications already under way. But that change has been largely attributed to immigration and a booming Hispanic birth rate.
Only now are some demographers realizing that we have missed a trend that could accelerate that change, the decline in the number of white children and white women of child-bearing age. Like so much of the country, even the smartest academics have been so focused on the politically contentious issue of immigration, and the surging Hispanic population, that they missed an intriguing transformation right under their noses.
The March issue of Population and Development Review includes a full explanation via “Growing Diversity Among America’s Children and Youth: Spatial and Temporal Dimensions,” written by Kenneth Johnson of the University of New Hampshire and Daniel Lichter of Cornell University.
Mr. Johnson was the best Chicago-area demographer for years at Loyola University. Now he has opted for even longer winters, a chance to go to hockey games at the University of New Hampshire where fans chuck a fish onto the ice after their first goal, to be part of the Carsey Institute for Families and Communities. The institute is named for Marcy Carsey, an alumna who was a producer for “The Cosby Show,” “Roseanne” and other hits.
Mr. Lichter and Mr. Johnson discerned that the nation’s increasingly colorful cast involves the less-understood trend of a decline in the number of non-Hispanic white children. It’s not just that white women are having fewer children, there are simply fewer non-Hispanic white women between ages 20 and 39.
As Mr. Johnson concedes, few in his field perceived an actual drop in the number of white children as they focused on the Hispanic boom. And they didn’t realize that the decline in the number of white women of child-bearing age was so large, ultimately not putting the two elements together and then considering implications for the pace of diversity among American youth.
“I didn’t know about the latter fact — the decline in child-bearing white females — until I did analysis to revise the article,” said Mr. Johnson, who attributes the trend to a reduction in child-bearing among baby-boomer mothers and, now, their daughters.
Consider that in 2008 only 33.5 percent of Cook County’s under-20 population was non-Hispanic white. That is among the lowest percentages in the country.
In 2000, 56.2 percent of those under the age of 20 in suburban Cook County were non-Hispanic whites, compared with 16.6 percent of Chicago’s under-20 group. By 2008, the figure in suburban Cook County had fallen to 47.9 percent.
Meanwhile, Lake County, Ind., shifted to minority-majority for those under age 20 in 2008, one of 500 United States counties in that category.
Mr. Johnson calculated birth rates for non-Hispanic whites and minorities in Cook County in 2008. Among women ages 15 to 50, there were 62.6 births per 1,000 women for minority females, but only 41.9 births per 1,000 women for white women. White women as a group are older on average than Hispanic women, and are not having as many children.
“Yeah, it does surprise me,” said Ms. Elder, who plans to have children after she is more financially stable and finds the right partner in a world in which “me and my friends are more choosey.”
Ultimately, the new data underscores the United States’ unceasing evolution, hinting that it might get a bit more fractious if change is indeed speeded up. New guys make old guys nervous. Ins become outs. Political spoils are redistributed. It’s as common as divorce and dashed hopes of Cubs’ fans.
Indeed, at the turn of the last century, the birth rate among Irish immigrants was far greater than today’s Hispanic rate of three per family. Other groups were nervous, but life went on. Now the Irish are in decline.
We should remember that during Saturday’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Wave at Mayor Richard M. Daley and Gov. Patrick J. Quinn — and then put some parade photos in a time capsule.
[/quote]
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/us/12cncwarren.html
On a serious note, I was born in Illinois so that's pretty interesting stuff.
White Women Influencing Shift to Minority-Majority Nation
By JAMES WARREN
Published: March 11, 2010
James Warren is a columnist for the Chicago News Cooperative.
Chicago Report
The Chicago report features coverage of public affairs, culture, lifestyle and sports in the region and is produced by the Chicago News Cooperative, a non-profit news organization. We invite your comments at [email protected].
Related
Sarah Elder is obvious evidence of a rotten economy, laid off as a social worker at a Park Ridge residential facility for foster children.
But as she makes ends meet, working at a North Side bakery cafe while taking classes at night, Ms. Elder, 26, is a member of a little-known, declining demographic in the Chicago area: non-Hispanic white children and white women of prime child-bearing age.
It has long been assumed that the United States will be a minority-majority nation by mid-century, with the cultural and political ramifications already under way. But that change has been largely attributed to immigration and a booming Hispanic birth rate.
Only now are some demographers realizing that we have missed a trend that could accelerate that change, the decline in the number of white children and white women of child-bearing age. Like so much of the country, even the smartest academics have been so focused on the politically contentious issue of immigration, and the surging Hispanic population, that they missed an intriguing transformation right under their noses.
The March issue of Population and Development Review includes a full explanation via “Growing Diversity Among America’s Children and Youth: Spatial and Temporal Dimensions,” written by Kenneth Johnson of the University of New Hampshire and Daniel Lichter of Cornell University.
Mr. Johnson was the best Chicago-area demographer for years at Loyola University. Now he has opted for even longer winters, a chance to go to hockey games at the University of New Hampshire where fans chuck a fish onto the ice after their first goal, to be part of the Carsey Institute for Families and Communities. The institute is named for Marcy Carsey, an alumna who was a producer for “The Cosby Show,” “Roseanne” and other hits.
Mr. Lichter and Mr. Johnson discerned that the nation’s increasingly colorful cast involves the less-understood trend of a decline in the number of non-Hispanic white children. It’s not just that white women are having fewer children, there are simply fewer non-Hispanic white women between ages 20 and 39.
As Mr. Johnson concedes, few in his field perceived an actual drop in the number of white children as they focused on the Hispanic boom. And they didn’t realize that the decline in the number of white women of child-bearing age was so large, ultimately not putting the two elements together and then considering implications for the pace of diversity among American youth.
“I didn’t know about the latter fact — the decline in child-bearing white females — until I did analysis to revise the article,” said Mr. Johnson, who attributes the trend to a reduction in child-bearing among baby-boomer mothers and, now, their daughters.
Consider that in 2008 only 33.5 percent of Cook County’s under-20 population was non-Hispanic white. That is among the lowest percentages in the country.
In 2000, 56.2 percent of those under the age of 20 in suburban Cook County were non-Hispanic whites, compared with 16.6 percent of Chicago’s under-20 group. By 2008, the figure in suburban Cook County had fallen to 47.9 percent.
Meanwhile, Lake County, Ind., shifted to minority-majority for those under age 20 in 2008, one of 500 United States counties in that category.
Mr. Johnson calculated birth rates for non-Hispanic whites and minorities in Cook County in 2008. Among women ages 15 to 50, there were 62.6 births per 1,000 women for minority females, but only 41.9 births per 1,000 women for white women. White women as a group are older on average than Hispanic women, and are not having as many children.
“Yeah, it does surprise me,” said Ms. Elder, who plans to have children after she is more financially stable and finds the right partner in a world in which “me and my friends are more choosey.”
Ultimately, the new data underscores the United States’ unceasing evolution, hinting that it might get a bit more fractious if change is indeed speeded up. New guys make old guys nervous. Ins become outs. Political spoils are redistributed. It’s as common as divorce and dashed hopes of Cubs’ fans.
Indeed, at the turn of the last century, the birth rate among Irish immigrants was far greater than today’s Hispanic rate of three per family. Other groups were nervous, but life went on. Now the Irish are in decline.
We should remember that during Saturday’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Wave at Mayor Richard M. Daley and Gov. Patrick J. Quinn — and then put some parade photos in a time capsule.
[/quote]
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/us/12cncwarren.html
On a serious note, I was born in Illinois so that's pretty interesting stuff.