The Population Shifts in the United States

White Births Are No Longer the Majority

by Jennie Wood

Related Links Census 2010 Families by Type, Race, and Hispanic Origin Profile of the United States U.S. Population by State, 1790 to 2011 Births, Birth Rates, and Fertility Rates U.S. Census Timeline

According to Census data released in the spring of 2012, white births were no longer in the majority in the United States. Over a 12-month period which ended in July 2011, Asians, blacks, Hispanics and mixed races made up 50.4 percent of all births, becoming a majority for the first time in the history of the United States.

The United States had been headed toward a shift in the majority for years. The country was founded by European whites who depended heavily on enslaved African populations. The 1960s civil rights movement and acceptance of interracial marriages sped up the shift. The Census data also suggested that the increasing number of Latin Americans immigrating to the U.S. accelerated the decline of the white birth majority. From 2000 to 2010, more Hispanic births were recorded in the U.S. than Hispanics moving into the country. With the Hispanic population at the median age of 27 in 2012, the trend was expected to continue increasing.

The largest single share of total births still belonged to whites with 49.6 percent. The 2010 census data showed that whites also remained the majority in the overall U.S. population at 63.4 percent. However, with shift in majority births, the U.S. passed a demographic milestone, moving away from a white baby boomer culture toward a more global, multi-ethnic country.

Source: The U.S. Census Bureau