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Chris Cillizza
The Fix
Published: April 13
The America of today bears little resemblance to the country of 50 years ago. It is older. It is less white. And those two demographic trends will only accelerate over the next 50 years.
“Each of these shifts would by itself be the defining demographic story of its era,” writes Paul Taylor of the Pew Research Center. “The fact that both are unfolding simultaneously has generated big generation gaps that will put stress on our politics, families, pocketbooks, entitlement programs and social cohesion.”
Taylor’s conclusions come in an essay titled “The Next America” that details the massive shifts roiling the country — and what they will mean for its politics going forward. (Taylor has also written a book by the same name.)
While neither of his broadest conclusions — the nation is getting older and less white — is groundbreaking, he explores the depth, rate and impact of these changes in a way that drives home a basic point: We are through the demographic looking glass.
Let’s start where Taylor starts — with the graying of our population. Medical advances and better eating habits are extending our lives to a point unimaginable even as recently as 1960. Back then, average life expectancy was a shade under 70; in 2011, it was nearly 79. (The gap between men and women has shrunk as well. In 1960, women lived on average seven years longer; in 2011 that advantage was less than five years.)
“We’ll have almost as many Americans over age 85 as under age 5” by 2060, Taylor writes, noting that what has always been an age pyramid — broad among the young and narrowing significantly as the age ranges rise — will turn into more of an age rectangle over the next five decades. (This phenomenon is not simply a result of people living longer; the birth rate is declining simultaneously.)
The aging of America is happening at the same time the gap between how young and old see the world, politically speaking, is wider than ever.
In the 2012 election, President Obama won voters age 18 to 29 by 60 percent to 37 percent, while losing those 65 and over by 12 points. That 35-point swing between youngest and oldest is all the more remarkable when you consider that as recently as the 2000 presidential election, there was virtually no gap in how those voters cast ballots. Al Gore won voters age 18 to 29, 48 percent to 46 percent, and voters age 60 and older by a remarkably similar margin: 51 percent to 47 percent.
The other major demographic shift is the declining white population and the surging Hispanic community.
As Taylor notes, the American population was 85 percent white in 1960, but by 2060, it is expected to be 43 percent white. By contrast, Hispanics, who were just 4 percent of the population in 1960, are projected to make up more than 30 percent by 2060, according to Taylor.
The political implications of these changes are profound and are already being visited on the two major parties. Mitt Romney won the white vote by 20 points in 2012 — the largest margin since Ronald Reagan in his landslide reelection in 1984 — but still lost the election convincingly. That’s because whites were just 72 percent of voters, the lowest percentage ever; it was the sixth-straight presidential race in which the white vote declined as a share of the overall electorate.
Combine the smaller white vote with Obama’s dominance among Hispanics (he won71 percent of their votes) and African Americans (93 percent), and you see why he won easily among an electorate that simply looked different than it had in years past.
Perhaps the most interesting finding about ethnicity in Taylor’s piece, however, is not the projected growth of the Hispanic community or the shrinking of the white community, but rather the blurring of racial lines.
In 1960, just over 2 percent of the population married someone not of their own race. By 2010, that number had surged to 15.5 percent. As Taylor writes: “By 2050, will our racial categories still make much sense? These days our old labels are having trouble keeping up with our new weddings.”
The broad takeaway from Taylor’s outstanding work is that age and ethnicity are reshaping our country, and even our ways of describing each other, rapidly and meaningfully. Those changes mean that assumptions based on the past are extremely dangerous, in politics and everywhere else. We are entering a new age for America. Both parties need to acknowledge that reality and act — and react — accordingly.
Chris Cillizza
Chris Cillizza is founder and editor of The Fix, a leading blog on state and national politics. He is the author of The Gospel According to the Fix: An Insider’s Guide to a Less than Holy World of Politics and an MSNBC contributor and political analyst. He also regularly appears on NBC and NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show. He joined The Post in 2005 and was named one of the top 50 journalists by Washingtonian in 2009.
‘The Next America’ presents challenges, opportunities for politicians - The Washington Post
A Study On The Changing Racial Makeup Of 'The Next America'
VOXXI | by Danielle Restuccia
Posted: 04/13/2014 11:22 am
By 2042, so-called racial minority groups will make up the majority of the U.S. population.
That’s according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest projection. Building on that, the Pew Research Center recently released an extensive study on the shifting demographics of race in our country, showing that within a century (from 1960 to 2060), white Americans will have gone from making up 85 percent of the population to comprising 43 percent.
On the other hand, the number of Hispanic and Black Americans will have grown substantially over that time period, together making up 45 percent of the 2060 population.
Immigration and intermarriage account for much of this change in our country’s racial makeup, and for many, that’s a good thing, forcing us to embrace diversity and reexamine how we categorize race. However, other research suggests that these shifting demographics may cause fear or a tendency to become more conservative on the part of white Americans.
Pew Research Center Numbers
According to the Pew Research Center study, our racial makeup has changed substantially in just the last 50 years.
For instance, from 1960 to 2010, the percentages of Americans identifying themselves as Black, Hispanic, Asian, or “other” increased from just 15 percent of the population to 36 percent of the population:
Immigration and Intermarriage
A significant impetus for these shifting demographics is immigration: since 1965, the U.S. has welcomed 40 million immigrants, with half of those identifying as Hispanic.
Of course, the U.S. has always been a country of newcomers. In the early days of our founding and through the middle of the 20th century, our population consisted of huge numbers of European immigrants.
However, our changing racial makeup is due to a shift in immigrants’ countries of origin: while 88 percent of immigrants in 1900 were from Europe, Europeans only comprise 12 percent of the immigrant population today. Conversely, immigration from Hispanic countries is on the rise, with over 50 percent of all immigrants to the U.S. today hailing from Latin America. So while the Hispanic population in the U.S. has been increasing, the influx of white Americans has been decreasing.
Unsurprisingly, because over a quarter of the entire U.S. population is now made up of immigrants, racial intermarriage is also driving a more diverse population. Just half a century ago, less than three percent of new marriages were between people of different races; today, 15.5 percent of newlyweds come from different racial backgrounds.
That means that not only is our racial makeup changing, but it’s getting more complicated to explain, too.
Adjusting Our Racial Categories
Shifting demographics and intermarriage mean we may need to reexamine how we talk about race.
In the past, the U.S. Census Bureau and other organizations have asked people to define themselves according to checkboxes: “Asian,” “Hispanic,” or “Native American,” for example. However, with the changing faces in the U.S., it’s no longer so easy for many people to simply categorize themselves, nor do they feel they should have to label their race as one thing or another.
Especially for children of racial intermarriage, “identity is a highly nuanced concept, influenced by politics, religion, history, and geography, as well as by how the person believes the answer will be used,” according to National Geographic’s report on increasing racial diversity.
Because there’s no longer a clear divide between black and white in the U.S.—as there was in the 1960s and earlier, for instance—people are beginning to see racial categories as much more fluid and adjustable. Some people have taken to creating new categories altogether: “On playgrounds and college campuses, you’ll find such homespun terms as Blackanese, Filatino, Chicanese, and Korgentinian.”
Possible Racial Divide
So what will those shifting categories mean by 2060, when we have an even more diverse racial makeup in the U.S.?
For some, it’s likely to be a good thing. According to the Pew Research Center’s report, new numbers of racially diverse commercials, celebrities, and terms suggest that “the norms are changing and the stigma [about interracial marriage, in particular] receding.”
On the other hand, researchers from Northwestern University conducted two studies showing that white Americans may feel threatened by the prospect of becoming a racial minority.
According to Slate’s report on the study, psychologists Maureen Craig and Jennifer Richeson gave self-identified politically “independent” white Americans information about the country’s shifting demographics. They then asked a series of questions about national or state-level policies and found that when white Americans were “aware of demographic changes that put them in the minority,” they tended to endorse more conservative political policies.
That has some people worrying that that we’ll see a deepening divide between whites and other racial groups; Slate suggested that the best example of how this demographic fear has (in the past) manifested itself was in slavery and apartheid.
While it’s extreme to think that we would devolve back into policies common to the 19th century, the changing racial makeup will likely test us as a country. But maybe that’s not a bad thing: with more diversity and new challenges, there’s the chance to better ourselves, too.
Originally published on VOXXI as Projections show rapidly changing racial makeup of U.S.
A Study On The Changing Racial Makeup Of 'The Next America'
The Fix
Published: April 13
The America of today bears little resemblance to the country of 50 years ago. It is older. It is less white. And those two demographic trends will only accelerate over the next 50 years.
“Each of these shifts would by itself be the defining demographic story of its era,” writes Paul Taylor of the Pew Research Center. “The fact that both are unfolding simultaneously has generated big generation gaps that will put stress on our politics, families, pocketbooks, entitlement programs and social cohesion.”
Taylor’s conclusions come in an essay titled “The Next America” that details the massive shifts roiling the country — and what they will mean for its politics going forward. (Taylor has also written a book by the same name.)
While neither of his broadest conclusions — the nation is getting older and less white — is groundbreaking, he explores the depth, rate and impact of these changes in a way that drives home a basic point: We are through the demographic looking glass.
Let’s start where Taylor starts — with the graying of our population. Medical advances and better eating habits are extending our lives to a point unimaginable even as recently as 1960. Back then, average life expectancy was a shade under 70; in 2011, it was nearly 79. (The gap between men and women has shrunk as well. In 1960, women lived on average seven years longer; in 2011 that advantage was less than five years.)
“We’ll have almost as many Americans over age 85 as under age 5” by 2060, Taylor writes, noting that what has always been an age pyramid — broad among the young and narrowing significantly as the age ranges rise — will turn into more of an age rectangle over the next five decades. (This phenomenon is not simply a result of people living longer; the birth rate is declining simultaneously.)
The aging of America is happening at the same time the gap between how young and old see the world, politically speaking, is wider than ever.
In the 2012 election, President Obama won voters age 18 to 29 by 60 percent to 37 percent, while losing those 65 and over by 12 points. That 35-point swing between youngest and oldest is all the more remarkable when you consider that as recently as the 2000 presidential election, there was virtually no gap in how those voters cast ballots. Al Gore won voters age 18 to 29, 48 percent to 46 percent, and voters age 60 and older by a remarkably similar margin: 51 percent to 47 percent.
The other major demographic shift is the declining white population and the surging Hispanic community.
As Taylor notes, the American population was 85 percent white in 1960, but by 2060, it is expected to be 43 percent white. By contrast, Hispanics, who were just 4 percent of the population in 1960, are projected to make up more than 30 percent by 2060, according to Taylor.
The political implications of these changes are profound and are already being visited on the two major parties. Mitt Romney won the white vote by 20 points in 2012 — the largest margin since Ronald Reagan in his landslide reelection in 1984 — but still lost the election convincingly. That’s because whites were just 72 percent of voters, the lowest percentage ever; it was the sixth-straight presidential race in which the white vote declined as a share of the overall electorate.
Combine the smaller white vote with Obama’s dominance among Hispanics (he won71 percent of their votes) and African Americans (93 percent), and you see why he won easily among an electorate that simply looked different than it had in years past.
Perhaps the most interesting finding about ethnicity in Taylor’s piece, however, is not the projected growth of the Hispanic community or the shrinking of the white community, but rather the blurring of racial lines.
In 1960, just over 2 percent of the population married someone not of their own race. By 2010, that number had surged to 15.5 percent. As Taylor writes: “By 2050, will our racial categories still make much sense? These days our old labels are having trouble keeping up with our new weddings.”
The broad takeaway from Taylor’s outstanding work is that age and ethnicity are reshaping our country, and even our ways of describing each other, rapidly and meaningfully. Those changes mean that assumptions based on the past are extremely dangerous, in politics and everywhere else. We are entering a new age for America. Both parties need to acknowledge that reality and act — and react — accordingly.
Chris Cillizza
Chris Cillizza is founder and editor of The Fix, a leading blog on state and national politics. He is the author of The Gospel According to the Fix: An Insider’s Guide to a Less than Holy World of Politics and an MSNBC contributor and political analyst. He also regularly appears on NBC and NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show. He joined The Post in 2005 and was named one of the top 50 journalists by Washingtonian in 2009.
‘The Next America’ presents challenges, opportunities for politicians - The Washington Post
A Study On The Changing Racial Makeup Of 'The Next America'
VOXXI | by Danielle Restuccia
Posted: 04/13/2014 11:22 am
By 2042, so-called racial minority groups will make up the majority of the U.S. population.
That’s according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest projection. Building on that, the Pew Research Center recently released an extensive study on the shifting demographics of race in our country, showing that within a century (from 1960 to 2060), white Americans will have gone from making up 85 percent of the population to comprising 43 percent.
On the other hand, the number of Hispanic and Black Americans will have grown substantially over that time period, together making up 45 percent of the 2060 population.
Immigration and intermarriage account for much of this change in our country’s racial makeup, and for many, that’s a good thing, forcing us to embrace diversity and reexamine how we categorize race. However, other research suggests that these shifting demographics may cause fear or a tendency to become more conservative on the part of white Americans.
Pew Research Center Numbers
According to the Pew Research Center study, our racial makeup has changed substantially in just the last 50 years.
For instance, from 1960 to 2010, the percentages of Americans identifying themselves as Black, Hispanic, Asian, or “other” increased from just 15 percent of the population to 36 percent of the population:
- Black: Increased from 10 to 12 percent
- Hispanic: Increased from 4 to 15 percent
- Asian: increased from 1 to 5 percent
- “Other”: Increased from 0 to 3 percent
Immigration and Intermarriage
A significant impetus for these shifting demographics is immigration: since 1965, the U.S. has welcomed 40 million immigrants, with half of those identifying as Hispanic.
Of course, the U.S. has always been a country of newcomers. In the early days of our founding and through the middle of the 20th century, our population consisted of huge numbers of European immigrants.
However, our changing racial makeup is due to a shift in immigrants’ countries of origin: while 88 percent of immigrants in 1900 were from Europe, Europeans only comprise 12 percent of the immigrant population today. Conversely, immigration from Hispanic countries is on the rise, with over 50 percent of all immigrants to the U.S. today hailing from Latin America. So while the Hispanic population in the U.S. has been increasing, the influx of white Americans has been decreasing.
Unsurprisingly, because over a quarter of the entire U.S. population is now made up of immigrants, racial intermarriage is also driving a more diverse population. Just half a century ago, less than three percent of new marriages were between people of different races; today, 15.5 percent of newlyweds come from different racial backgrounds.
That means that not only is our racial makeup changing, but it’s getting more complicated to explain, too.
Adjusting Our Racial Categories
Shifting demographics and intermarriage mean we may need to reexamine how we talk about race.
In the past, the U.S. Census Bureau and other organizations have asked people to define themselves according to checkboxes: “Asian,” “Hispanic,” or “Native American,” for example. However, with the changing faces in the U.S., it’s no longer so easy for many people to simply categorize themselves, nor do they feel they should have to label their race as one thing or another.
Especially for children of racial intermarriage, “identity is a highly nuanced concept, influenced by politics, religion, history, and geography, as well as by how the person believes the answer will be used,” according to National Geographic’s report on increasing racial diversity.
Because there’s no longer a clear divide between black and white in the U.S.—as there was in the 1960s and earlier, for instance—people are beginning to see racial categories as much more fluid and adjustable. Some people have taken to creating new categories altogether: “On playgrounds and college campuses, you’ll find such homespun terms as Blackanese, Filatino, Chicanese, and Korgentinian.”
Possible Racial Divide
So what will those shifting categories mean by 2060, when we have an even more diverse racial makeup in the U.S.?
For some, it’s likely to be a good thing. According to the Pew Research Center’s report, new numbers of racially diverse commercials, celebrities, and terms suggest that “the norms are changing and the stigma [about interracial marriage, in particular] receding.”
On the other hand, researchers from Northwestern University conducted two studies showing that white Americans may feel threatened by the prospect of becoming a racial minority.
According to Slate’s report on the study, psychologists Maureen Craig and Jennifer Richeson gave self-identified politically “independent” white Americans information about the country’s shifting demographics. They then asked a series of questions about national or state-level policies and found that when white Americans were “aware of demographic changes that put them in the minority,” they tended to endorse more conservative political policies.
That has some people worrying that that we’ll see a deepening divide between whites and other racial groups; Slate suggested that the best example of how this demographic fear has (in the past) manifested itself was in slavery and apartheid.
While it’s extreme to think that we would devolve back into policies common to the 19th century, the changing racial makeup will likely test us as a country. But maybe that’s not a bad thing: with more diversity and new challenges, there’s the chance to better ourselves, too.
Originally published on VOXXI as Projections show rapidly changing racial makeup of U.S.
A Study On The Changing Racial Makeup Of 'The Next America'
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