Falsehood: Poor people have more babies…
Published by Greg January 17th, 2007 in Science Essays, Falsehoods, Human Evolution 1001First, where does the idea that poor people have more babies than rich people come from?
When I think about this, four things come to mind. One is the comments I’ve heard from people I know who live in the middle east. Arab, Palestinian, Egyptian, Israeli, Jew, does not matter. It is often said in that context that the “other” people are trying to out-breed “us.” This is not strictly related to rich people vs poor (well, yes, but in complex ways beyond this post) but it reminds me that there is a paranoia about this issue.
Second, I am reminded of the common social construct of the welfare mother. She is black, usually corpulent, has signed up for nine different welfare and food stamp accounts, and has nine or ten children. This is part of what sociologists call the “Welfare Stigma.” Yes, there is such a woman, she was on the Today Show once in November, 1971. Maybe she got person of the year in Time Magazine once, I can’t remember. The point is that this world is not full of corpulent fast-breeding black women on welfare nine times over. This is just a version of the paranoia mentioned above.
Third, there is the baby glut of the 1970s and 1980s. Middle class American women stopped breeding during this period of time. Why? Ah, there are several theories, and I’ve got a really fun hypothesis on this one myself, but we will not discuss that here and now. Some other time. But, it is simply a fact that this happened.
When this happened, it was not the case that poor people started having more babies than middle class people, but rather, middle class people experienced preternaturally low fertility. So in comparison, this underscored the already extant perception that poor people have more babies that “rich” people (where rich in this case equals middle class).
Fourth, there is Nigeria. Not to pick on Nigeria specifically, but there was a fairly long period of time when everybody knew that Nigeria had the highest fertility rate in the world, and Nigerian women, who are all poor, were having piles of babies. More generally, there is the perception that people in poor countries have lots and lots of babies, indicated by very high fertility rates.
If some of these seem like harsh concepts, then we are making progress. The concept that the poor breed like rabbits while the wealthy don’t is a racist and obnoxious one, especially considering that it is generally not true.
I thought of introducing this topic into my general teaching regimen back in the 1980s when I observed two things at roughly the same time. The first was a victory speech given by the venerable Edward Kennedy (he had just defeated Mitt Romney in a bid for Senate). Ted got up on the podium, and started waving his family up to be there with them. So a few Kennedy’s climbed up on the platform. He kept waving. More climbed up there. This went on for several minutes. Finally there were like 3,000 close relatives of Ted Kennedy up on the platform.
Now, I admit this was in Massachusetts, where you are no one unless you are either a Kennedy or you Know a Kennedy, or make it a business to vociferously Hate the Kennedy’s, so maybe a lot of them were faking it (FOT’s … Friends of Ted). But it was also probably an example of a rich guy with a zillion copies of his DNA manifesting themselves in the next generation.
The second thing that happened was the publication of a paper by Essock-Vitale called “The reproductive success of wealthy Americans” (Ethology and Sociobiology 5:45-49)
In this paper, the author compares the estimated completed fertility of women in the top 500 wealthiest families in the United States with the average fertility of the United States. The rich people have more babies.
Since then there has been a great deal more research. Of course, the relationship is complex. But there are reasonable behavioral biological models interacting with real life data that strongly suggest that wealth is more than roughly equivalent to resources, and that resources potentate or limit fertility in humans just as in any other mammal.
There are two ways to think about resources and fertility (well, more than two but let’s just look at these two for now):
1)Partition resources to put little into each of many offspring, vs. partition resources to put a lot into a smaller number of offspring. This is sometimes refereed to as r-strategy vs. K-strategy; and
2)In a given system (a given “r vs. K” strategy), more resources equals more offspring.
Both strategies have been shown to work and to vary both within species (across conditions) and between species (across adaptive paradigms). However, the so called r-K spectrum is more typically one that describes interspecies differences in mammals and birds (and probably other life forms). In other words, a major r-K difference is could almost be thought of as a “macro-evolutionary” shift, while the resources -> fertility link is local, intra-population, and conditional.
What really annoys me is that many researchers, almost always part of the persistent and pernicious clade of researchers who insist on there being deep and meaningful race differences in humans (in other words, racists) focus on the r-K difference within or among human populations, yet the vast majority of information we have suggest that the resource -> fertility relationship is the one that actually works.
So in a given context, wealth typically = resources which typically = fertility, give or take.
But what about Nigeria et al? This is a biological question, so let us try to be good biologists. If you want to measure fertility and resources, or some other set of variables that you strongly suggest relate to each other, would you take one variable and compare it across populations without controls? No. The raw comparison of a perception of wealth ( … the researcher’s perception that is …) between US and Nigeria compared with raw data on fertility is not a valid comparison. Nothing is being controlled for. The economies and societies are too different.
Of course, we now know because we have seen it happen that huge fertility increases and decreases occur often in relation to health and expectations of mortality. In places like Nigeria, when morbidity and mortality go down, fertility goes down. Again, the comparison between nations with different wealth measurements is invalid.
Greg,
I am glad I found your blog and this post, I plan on visiting again.
Now on the comparison of fertility rates between 1st worlds and 3rd worlds.
I can appreciate your point about the difficulty of comparing economies, such as U.S. versus Nigeria.
However, here is somewhat of an evolutionary-psych hypothesis. In developing countries where infant/child mortality, and perhaps general mortality is high, “poor people” will attempt have more children so as to have greater probability of passing genes into the next generation. In developed countries, people will have less children because there is a lower probability of mortality before reproductive age and occurence. What do you think?
It seems I recall some studies supporting this cited in a book called “The Evolution of Human Sociality” by Stephen K. Sanderson.
To put it another way: Everybody is passing on their genes, but the “correct” number of babies to have to get the same effect varies with the environment.
This has been demonstrated. Significant improvements in health care and nutrition have been introduced into areas with high fertility rates and high infant/child mortality rates. The infant and child mortality goes down. The fertility rate follows closely.
So yes, exactly!
You can make comparisons between regions, but not simple comparisons of the raw numbers.
You make a number of interesting points, but how about some data? Surely someone must have graphed fertility against median per-capita income (not perceptions) by country. What about a graph of fertility vs. income in the US? Maybe rich people have more kids than middle class folks, but how about middle class versus poor? I’m not sure what conclusions I would draw without additional data (for example, maybe people on welfare do a better job raising kids because they can spend more time with them, in which case maybe we should encourage them to have more) but data seem like a better way than anecdotes to disprove a “falsehood.”
What exactly is meant by fertility here? Number of pregnancies or number of births? And whaty about contraception?
I’m not criticizing the valid point that scarcity affects reproductive rates, but there are no statistics here, only examples, and the word fertility seems to be used in multiple equivocal senses.
Statistically, wealthier humans are more likely to use contraception and abortion to curb the number of births. This is a reality independant of biological claims by scientists like Philippe Rushton, who claims that Africans have a higher rate of twinning.
Forgive me if I’m being blunt–i’m new to this site.
Nate: Fertility means number of births. That is the only thing it means, and I’m pretty sure that is the only way I’ve used it.
I think you are correct about the use of birth control. There is a whole other angle here, and that is to look at the simple apparent fact that humans strive to reproduce themselves. In theory (using the term in the vernacular sense here) a wealthy couple could have dozens of children. Why don’t they? Because they are wealthy doctors, and the would produce dozens of poor children. Instead, they produce a couple of docotors.
Do you know how much it takes to raise a doctor, live in a nice suburban home in Edina, have a car for everyone in the family, etc. etc.? A lot (sorry, not data here. .. yes, I’ve got data, but I’m not going to go get it just now, so you must trust me!). Anyway, it is not so much the cost of college, medical school, a few nice cars, a bit house, etc. that determines reproductive output among the upper middle class and wealthy. It’s interest rates. Prime interest rate is negatively correlated with fertility among middle and upper class Americans.
Ford: Sorry, I did not see your comment until now. My assertions are based on my own graphing of the data of fertility against various economic indicators including per-capita income. Essock Vitale’s paper also has data.
Someday, perhaps I’ll write a new post with fancy graphics and tables, etc.
All I have to say is YES! Poor people DO have more kids than rich people! In the United States, its a well known fact that poor, (mainly black) girls have children for the sole reason of receiving wellfare cheques! I’ve heard conversations between them stating that exact fact! Why is it that most of the poor people who need assistance from food banks, etc are always young black, single mothers with an average of 5 children?! Its almost like the less money they have, the more kids they have!! Where is the sense in that?? And then the rest of us have to help them out because they don’t know better than to have any kids at all when they can barely support themselves!! My favorite is when these young girls have their babies because they think that will make their boyfriends stick around! In reality, these men only run away faster and farther, and then the girls have to go on the Maury Povich show to prove who the real dad is!! Are you people blind? This is happening all over the States! How naive of you to think anything else of this epidemic of fatherless children we have. And its not just the women’s fault….these pigs who have unprotected sex with girls then take off the second they think they might be pregnant! Not to mention the STD’s that they’re spreading in the process! Its disgusting enough to make me want to move to another country! Another reason poor people in poor countries like Africa and India have many more children is because in those places, children are considered assetts. They can help their parents to get food and money at a very young age, and the more the better. Also, most of those countries consider children as a sign of woman and manhood. The more children you have, the better your status. Also the more sons, the better because they carry on the family name. So before you go off on a ridiculous rant about how people are prejudice and RACIST, maybe you should learn the actual facts and stop dreaming of an unrealistic world where everyone is equal…. because we’re simply not. And that won’t ever change! No matter how much you want to blame racism, it is not a matter of it; its a matter of statistics and FACT! Learn them, expand your mind and don’t try to jump on the wagon of this dillusional thought that “the world can live in harmony and everyone will live as one”. It just can’t be. The sooner you realize that, the better off we’ll all be. I’m so tired of people getting offended by others who state the facts. Not everything is racism! Some things are just the way it is, so get over it! Thank you for this opportunity to finally set things straight.
Poor people definitely have more children than wealthier more educated people. I’m an arab female raised in the mideast and I currently live in the U.S. I come from an extremely poor arab family but my parents who are on welfare, have 5 kids including me. I have over 67 cousins. Now that I have been educated in the U.S. and have learned a lesson from my mother’s mistakes of stupidly having 5 kids and not even being able to feed them, I will not be having my own kids although I will be adopting to help decrease the number of orphans out there. Many poor arabs/muslims/indians and africans I know, and even poor americans and caucasions have more kids than thier salaries could afford to provide for. I know muslims do it because our religion tells us that we’re supposed to multiply and take over the world by spreading out and multiplying, and because it’s cultural and they’re just blindly following their parents, and also having a ton of kids.
Let’s oversimplify the situation for a moment just to make a point. Let’s say there are four groups of people:
A) Rich people who have many children
B) Rich people who have few children
C) Poor people who have many children
D) Poor people who have few children
…and let’s make the following assumptions:
1) Children inherit their parents’ tendency to have few or many children (i.e. it’s 100% genetic).
2) Group A = 5% of the population; Group B = 15% of the population; Group C = 65% of the population; Group D = 15% of the population (I completely made these numbers up)
3) Being rich gives you a 1% evolutionary advantage; that is rich children are 1% more likely to survive than poor children. Maybe due to medicine, intelligence, social circumstances, whatever.
No matter how you play with the numbers (as long as they stay somewhat realistic), Group A will completely dominate the population after 30-100 generations. Go ahead and create your own Excel spreadsheet. You’ll see that no matter what you do, you can’t get Group C to dominate the population after a couple thousand years.
…and this my friends, is how evolution works.
-Scott
What I really like to see are single black mothers in the nail salon getting fake nails and pedicures and they drive a nicer car than me (a veteran teacher and Ph.D. student). Further, I have witnessed these women bragging about how much money they received in a tax return because they qualified for earned income credit. Then, they hang outside while their toes are drying and smoke cigarettes. Drive through the ghetto one day and see how many are sitting on the porch, hanging out under the oak tree, and/or washing their new car with rims that cost more than the contents of my apartment. I agree that we will all never be equal because so many people don’t care to be equal. They just want a handout. I did not sign up to carry the load of less motivated people and I have enough just to take care of myself. I have taught kids over the years who have 12 brothers and sisters (hundreds of cousins) all with different last names. Further, the mothers make more money than me (monthly check, foodstamps, healthcare, housing, etc.) but complain about the injustices of society and “wo is me. I’m black. I’m oppressed. 13 men held me down on 13 different occassions and I got pregnant and even though I have an alternate choice, I had all 13 children and wo is me.” The whole thing sickens me. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that kids cost money and if you don’t have money, you shouldn’t have kids until you do the necessary actions to make upward movement in life. Last time I checked everyone has the freedom of CHOICES in America.
Let me make something painfully clear to you.
Unfortunately, the benefits system in the western world indulges the abuse by the poor dregs of the system that they may be better off for it.
Rich people like money. children cost them money.
Poor people like money, children make them money.
It’s as simple as that sometimes.
Some other reasons:
-Familial stability - child equals stable relationship(false)
-Pet factor - child is a dog replacement and vice versa
-Lack of education - stupid people don’t know how to use condoms
Deal with it, rich families do not have seven children.
Poor ones do!!!!!
I disagree with this article and agree with requests for data. As a physician who has worked in the OB wards at both innercity, county hospitals and private, suburban hospitals, I can definitely attest to a very obvious difference in fertility by ethnic and income groups in the United States. Almost every mother laboring at the county hospitals these days speaks Spanish, has many 8-10 years of education at most, and works 1-2 minimum wage jobs. This is true in a large, Midwestern ctiy, and even more true in states closer to the Mexican border. Shortly behind Hispanic mothers from Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala, etc. are African-American mothers who are indeed young, have multiple children by the age 19, frequently lack high school diplomas, very seldom are married or even in stable relationships with the “baby daddy”, and yes, are frequently overweight if not obese–if for no other reason than the fact that obesity is very prevalent in the African-American community at baseline.
The one beef I have about some of the prior responses is that I disagree that these women are having children primarily out of financial motivation. Most welfare laws have been revised in recent years such that the benefit of having additional children isn’t that great. And I can’t tell you the number of upset women who have started crying when they get their pregnancy test results confirmed. Personally, what I hear most from them is that their boyfriends or dates simply “don’t like using condoms,” and for whatever reasons they seldom are responsible enough to maintain birth control regiments, show up for doctor’s visits to get depo shots every 3 months, etc. An increasing number are getting implanon subdermal 3-year birth control devices implanted, which is good. But I think it’s more an issue of female empowerment (or lack thereof) and education vs a financial motive. And indeed, there sometimes is a perverse element of “keeping up with the Joneses.” Not too long ago I saw a 17-year-old high school dropout who wanted an infertility workup because she said “all her friends were already mothers” and she felt left out and like a failure. Note that many women fitting this demographic description request tubal ligation by early ages, such as 25, after already having 5+ pregnancies (some resulting in spontaneous or elective abortion). Remember that roughly 50% of pregnancies in this country are unplanned.
Contrast that with what you’ll find at the wealthy, suburban, private hospital. There, the issue isn’t teenage mothers, but rather advanced maternal age. Physicians view any woman over the age of 35 as being of “advanced” maternal age. This is usually news to most suburban mothers with professional careers that have put childbearing on hold. The number of viable eggs diminishes greatly starting at age 35, so infertility workups are common, as is an increasing incidence of Down Syndrome and other chromosomal abnormalities among upper and upper-middle class parents foregoing childbearing longer and longer.
Here we’re talking about parents who wait until everything is “just right” for them to even think about childbearing. They frequently have been in some form of schooling through most of their twenties, often returning to graduate school after a few years working. They often delay marriage until their late 20s or even 30s. Though unlike their impoverished counterparts at the county hospital, they are more likely to engage in serial monogamy before marriage and are typically very compliant with birth control pills, which are over 99% effective if used daily.
The true middle class I think is somewhere in between these two extremes.
Now I would also point out that blaming a lack of availability of birth control is not a reasonable excuse. Condoms are freely available at virtually any county hospital, low-income clinic, and planned parenthood office. Many of the women I have injected with depo provera or given implanon implants to are on medical assistance and have no co-pays associated with their visits. And yet they will still frequently miss their depo injections (which need to be done every 3 months to be effective) 2-3 times in a row for a variety of reasons–usually nothing all that critical. And of course, we require a negative pregnancy test before giving a depo injection, and it not too infrequently turns out positive after they’ve missed a couple appointments. So it’s not really a lack of availability or priciness of condoms. The simple fact is sex is not as enjoyable for the male with a condom on, and I frequently hear from African-American females that their partners simply “refuse” to use condoms. I’m not sure if the seuxal liberation that occured in the late 60s and early 70s never fully reached the lower-income African-American community, but it certainly seems like that’s the case. Their use of oral contraceptives is very low. They instead rely more on semi-permanent and permanent solutions like depo provera and tubal ligation. And more critically, they more frequently seem to cite lack of male compliance as the downfall of their attempts at birth control, indicating an obvious lack of empowerment in the relationship.
As for the increasingly large Hispanic community in this country, I think that is entirely a cultural difference. It was commonplace where many of these women came from to not use birth control. Most are Catholic, so there are religious issues as well. And in their home countries, it’s common to rely on breastfeeding as a form of birth control, which is in fact fairly successful in the short-term (6 months or so), but hardly approaches oral contraceptives in efficacy.
So do poor people have more children than rich people in the United States? I think the answer is a resounding yes, and all data I’ve previously seen does in fact support that.
People in Nigeria also have a higher rate of twins, and the heightened fertility can be explained, it is diet based. One of the main staple foods of the typical Nigerian diet is yams, and yams are chock-full of phyto-estrogen, which raises the fertility rate in women. Now, in my opinion, diet is more of a factor than social class for the recent population increase. This is due to hormones, mainly the hormones used by the dairy industry. There is alot of research that you can read about this, but one of the recent articles evaluated standard grocery store milk, and there were traces of HcG in it, which is human growth hormones, and makes it alot easier for a fertilized egg to implant. Now, the reason it looks as if it’s mainly the poor procreating is that so many lower class women are part of the WIC program, and some of these women make milk and cheese the predominant staple in their diets.
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I whole heartedly agree with everything Dr. Berryman has said, and I would like to add a theory of my own to it.
For decades I have observed the socioeconomic/class differences in the United States, especially in the south. I agree that those individuals, regardless of race, who value education and who desire a “successful lifestyle,” either have very few children, or in many cases none, and they put off having any children until they have completed their educations and have some degree of success in their chosen professions. Indeed, I personally know a lot of these women and men, and I can assure you that many of these people NEVER have any children due to the responsibilities children entail, not just the financial responsibility, either.
Looking at low income and poor individuals, they not only have many more children, but they begin having them whence they are quite young. In the African American community, especially in the south, I have always had the feeling that the low income and poor blacks have simply, but consciously, opted out of the so-called American Dream. Even if they attend school regularly, the public school system is so awful and so worthless in preparing them for a job, much less for college, that they make little or no effort to “excel.” Ask the school teachers how disruptive and abusive these kids can be. The schools function more as a baby sitting service than as schools.
Most of these kids never even graduate, nto that their diplomas would be worth the paper on which they are printed. (Ask some teachers at the university level who have some of these kids railroaded into their college classes about how they have to grade them. A paper that would receive a D, or at best a C- coming from a middle class white student will be awarded a B, or a B+ or even an A- if it were written by an Hispanic or African American student. They call this “affirmative action.” )
These kids’ sense of reality comes from the popular culture and from what their families tell them. They never experience much of life beyond their own narrow borders. They have no social capital, and they have no money. The result is that they continue to inhale the trash that Hollywood puts out with nothing else to compare it to. They buy into the “role models” that Hollywood and the music business promote. Likewise, they see sex more as a social activity than anything else. How else cany anyone explain these kids’ belief that oral sex is not sex?
The results of all of this are quite plain. High drop out rates, high teenage pregnancies, high crime rates, high one parent homes with many children, etc. It pains me each fall to see the evening news reporters out reporting on the parents coming in to get free school supplies. I recall one woman a couple of years ago who was interviewe with seven children. She was complaining about the high cost of school supplies and how as a single mother she could not afford to buy her kids school supplies. She had the children out of wedlock, and she was unable to provide for the first one she bore, but that did not stop her from having six more of them. She was still quite young, too, so my expectation was that she would have a few more of them before she was too old to have any more. She did not seem demented. She did not come off as the village idiot. So, it was all the more maddening to witness her interview and to know she was representative of many hundreds more, if not thousands more, in my city who were doing the same thing.
No one and nothing has ever broken far enough through to this classof people to cause them to break this cycle. Thus, we see each new generation perpetuating the mistakes of the previous generation, and I do not see this changing in the next one-hundred years, if ever, because it cannot be imposed from the outside. It has to come from within, but it is not coming from within. How it could made to flower from within these individuals at this time in history is beyond me to speculate.
Bill Cosby was brave enough to speak out about this not so very long ago, and most of the black community decried him for doing so. I wish more people like he would speak out. People like Mr. Cosby have a better chance of eventually getting through to these young people than do anyone else, but not enough of them are listening.
More than once in my life, I have heard people ask, “why doesn’t the government simply stop helping people who keep having kids for whom they are unable to provide?” I think the answer to that question is quite complex, but one simple and true fact is this. If the government stopped helping these people with housing, food stamps, medical care, etc., there are so many of them that they could easily be herded together by politicos calling for “revolution.” The rich would rather endlessly throw crumbs at the poor than to give up their great wealth and live in a more egalitarian society. They would rather continue to pursue personal wealth, educate their own kids at elite, expensive private prep schools and then send them on to elite, expensive colleges. Like the poor kids, the rich kids perpetuate the lifestyles and beliefs of their parents, and so we remain permanently divided socially, economically, and thus politcally.
Statistics are not everything. One cannot deny what one sees and hears for decades.
Sorry but statistics don’t lie. (sure they can be manipulated) Your eyes will lie. You will notice the welfare mom with 5 kids but never take a second look at the hundreds of welfare mothers with one or two children. You expect to see poor people with large families so it’s what you see, but facts are facts. Poor people do not on average have more children than middle class and upper class families.
Also from someone who has been in many welfare offices, the majority of the people there are white and most have three or fewer children.
There are a lot of classist people on here who will deny the fact no matter what you do, but this is a great piece.
I am a Indian living 150 miles south to Cheenai.
I have a very valid point for the disparity between poor and rich.
1,If an Australian or an person from Swizz claims to be poor than it is the government, the business man were responsible for his poverity.
2,But in our country poor people tends to more childern than rich. But now in south India even poor people are not having more kids due to “MUST EDUCATION” attitude and the government passes bills and funds to educate the poor people.
I think the population of the world should be just 2 billion where we can have a idea of “Socialism” throughout the world.
What a great discussion!
I have been saying for a while that white middle class women are being tricked out of having children. We go to school and work and find ourselves at 40 realizing that we forgot to have children. I find it infuriating to see young women with 5 children collecting benefits that I have to pay for. I think white middle class women have been played for fools. We are the one’s actually carrying the greatest burden and then end up all alone in old age.
I last posted on this topic in September, 2009. Next month, i.e. April, 2010 the U.S. is conducting another census of the population, but there should be no surprise as to what the population will look like after all is said and done. Minorities, especially those of Hispanic origin (the majority of which are poor), are having more babies than whites, asians, or blacks. Here is an article from the associated press which I read only this morning:
Point taken everyone who denies that poor people, especially minority poor, have more children?
Writer Hope Yen, Associated Press Writer – Wed Mar 10, 12:16 pm ET
WASHINGTON – Minorities make up nearly half the children born in the U.S., part of a historic trend in which minorities are expected to become the U.S. majority over the next 40 years.
In fact, demographers say this year could be the “tipping point” when the number of babies born to minorities outnumbers that of babies born to whites.
The numbers are growing because immigration to the U.S. has boosted the number of Hispanic women in their prime childbearing years. Minorities made up 48 percent of U.S. children born in 2008, the latest census estimates available, compared to 37 percent in 1990.
“Census projections suggest America may become a minority-majority country by the middle of the century. For America’s children, the future is now,” said Kenneth Johnson, a sociology professor at the University of New Hampshire who researched many of the racial trends in a paper being released Wednesday.
Johnson explained there are now more Hispanic women of prime childbearing age who tend to have more children than women of other races. More white women are waiting until they are older to have children, but it is not yet known whether that will have a noticeable effect on the current trend of increasing minority newborns.
Broken down by race, about 52 percent of babies born in 2008 were white. That’s compared to about 25 percent who were Hispanic, 15 percent black and 4 percent Asian. Another 4 percent were identified by their parents as multiracial.
The numbers highlight the nation’s growing racial and age divide, seen in pockets of communities across the U.S., which could heighten tensions in current policy debates from immigration reform and education to health care and Social Security.
There are also strong implications for the 2010 population count, which begins in earnest next week, when more than 120 million U.S. households receive their census forms in the mail. The Census Bureau is running public service announcements this week to improve its tally of young children, particularly minorities, who are most often missed in the once-a-decade head count. The campaign features Nickelodeon’s Dora the Explorer, the English- and Spanish-speaking cartoon character who helps “mommy fill out our census form.”
The population figures are used to distribute federal aid and redraw legislative boundaries with racial and ethnic balance, as required by federal law.
“The adults among themselves sometimes forget the census is about everyone, and kids should be counted,” said Census Bureau director Robert Groves. “If we fail to count a newborn that is born this month, that newborn misses all the benefits of the census for 10 years.”
Whites currently make up two-thirds of the total U.S. population, and recent census estimates suggest the number of minorities may not overtake the number of whites until 2050.
Right now, roughly 1 in 10 of the nation’s 3,142 counties already have minority populations greater than 50 percent. But 1 in 4 communities have more minority children than white children or are nearing that point, according to the study, which Johnson co-published.
That is because Hispanic women on average have three children, while other women on average have two. The numbers are 2.99 children for Hispanics, 1.87 for whites, 2.13 for blacks and 2.04 for Asians in the U.S. And the number of white women of prime childbearing age is on the decline, dropping 19 percent from 1990.
For example:
_In Gwinnett County, Ga., an Atlanta suburb, the population has shifted from 16 percent minority in 1990 to 58 percent minority in 2008. The number of blacks and Hispanics nearly doubled, while the number of white young people stayed roughly the same.
_The population of Dakota County, Neb., increased from 15 percent minority in 1990 to 54 percent in 2008, due largely to an influx of Hispanics who came looking for work in meatpacking and other labor.
_In Lake County, Ind., a suburb of Chicago, the minority population grew from 43 percent in 1990 to 53 percent in 2008 as the number of white children declined, the number of blacks stayed stable and the number of Hispanics increased.
The 2008 census estimates used local records of births and deaths, tax records of people moving within the U.S., and census statistics on immigrants. The figures for “white” refer to those whites who are not of Hispanic ethnicity.
Okay, folks, here is an AP article from 10 June 2010 which discusses the changes since the 2010 census. Once again, it seems clear that minorities, mostly poor, are having more children than middle to upper middle, as well as upper class parents of all races. To read the full article, see http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010.....ity-gains/
WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s minority population is steadily rising and now makes up 35 percent of the United States, advancing an unmistakable trend that could make minorities the new American majority by midcentury.
As white baby boomers age past their childbearing years, younger Hispanic parents are having children — and driving U.S. population growth.
“The aging of baby boomers beyond young middle age will have profound impacts on our labor force, housing market, schools and generational divisions on issues such as Social Security and Medicare,” said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. “The engine of growth for the younger population in most states will be new minorities.”
New Census estimates show minorities added more than 2 percent in 2009 to 107.2 million people, boosted by a surge in Hispanic births and more people who described themselves as multiracial. During this time, the white population remained flat, making up roughly 199.9 million, or 65 percent, of the country.
By comparison, whites comprised 69 percent of the total population in 2000, and minorities 31 percent.
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About 311 of the 3,143 counties — one in 10 — have minority populations of 50 percent or greater. That’s up from around 250 counties in 2000.
The Census estimates released Thursday documented a widening age and race divide. They are the last government numbers before completion later this year of the 2010 census, which could change the balance of political power when legislative districts are redrawn based on population and racial diversity.
A key factor in the demographic transformation is aging baby boomers, a predominantly white group now shepherding college kids instead of starting young families. Since 2000, the number of whites under age 45 decreased by 8.4 million, while the number of whites over that age rose by 12.6 million.
The result is that the number of white younger adults and children fell in 42 states. Fifteen states, led by California, New York, Pennsylvania and Michigan, have lost more than 10 percent of their younger white population since 2000.
Locally, the changing race dynamics were widespread.
Seven U.S. counties last year saw their minority populations become the majority: Gwinnett County, Ga.; Titus and Victoria counties in Texas; Finney County, Kan.; Saguache County, Colo.; Contra Costa County, Calif.; and Yakima County, Wash.
The rise in the minority population is due to recent sharp increases in minority births, especially among Hispanics, who accounted for more than half of total U.S. population gains last year. There are now roughly 9 births for every 1 death among Latinos, compared to a roughly one-to-one ratio for whites.
Based on current rates, data from the 2010 census could show a new “tipping point” in which babies born to minorities outnumber that of babies born to whites. About 1 in 4 counties now have more minority children than white children or are nearing that point.
“Fertility is playing a critical role in reshaping the racial and ethnic structure of the country,” said Kenneth Johnson, a sociology professor at the University of New Hampshire.
Multiracial Americans, the fastest growing U.S. demographic group, are also adding to minority gains. About 5.3 million last year were identified as being of multiple race or ethnicity, up 3.2 percent from the previous year.
Among racial and ethnic groups, Hispanics grew by 3.1 percent to 48.4 million and