Changes in State’s Ethnic Balance Are Accelerating

Demographic change in California is occurring so fast that by next year, no single ethnic group will comprise a majority of the state’s population, according to forecasts in a new state report.

Previous estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau predicted California would become a “majority minority” state by the year 2005.

But state researchers, relying on population projections by both the Census Bureau and the state Department of Finance, predict that California’s white population will fall to 50% next year--the lowest since the Gold Rush--continuing a decades-long downward slide. In 1970, whites accounted for 77% of California’s residents.

As the percentage of whites decreases, the burgeoning Latino population will account for almost a third of the state’s 34 million people in 2000. By 2021, Latinos are expected to be California’s largest ethnic group, at about 40%.

“One of the central issues in California is how second-generation Latinos do economically and educationally over time,” said Hans Johnson, a demographer for the San Francisco-based Public Policy Institute of California. “As Latinos become a bigger group, that becomes a bigger issue.”

The latest state population forecast is contained in a report compiled by the California Research Bureau, the state library’s research arm. The report, scheduled to be released this week, shows how California has changed demographically since 1940 and how it will continue to do so in the future.

There are four major demographic shifts occurring in California, including the rapidly diversifying population, the report concludes. Some have been noted in various forms in earlier population studies.

Other trends include:

* Births are becoming the most important source of population growth, accounting for more than half the state’s population increase since 1990 and surpassing migration to California from other states and foreign countries. The higher birth rate among Latinos is also a key component in California’s ethnic transformation.

From 1990 to 1996, slightly more than 44% of the 3.6 million babies born in the state were Latino, followed by 38% for whites.

* International migration, particularly from Mexico, other Latin American countries and Asia, is now the second leading cause of the state’s growth. Migration from other states, once responsible for more than half California’s growth, has declined greatly since 1970 and even turned negative earlier this decade at the nadir of the recession.

There is new evidence, however, that in the last two years, that pattern has reversed. More people are moving here because of the state’s strong economy, though overall the number is small.

* The number of people 65 years of age and older is growing, and they are becoming a larger proportion of the population. Most of them are white. Nearly 4 million Californians are expected to be at least 65 next year. Their number will increase to about 6.5 million in 2020, when seniors will make up about 14% of the state’s population.

The report makes clear that these changes will continue well into the next century.

Next year, the report says, minorities--Latinos, Asians, blacks and Native Americans--will comprise half the Golden State’s residents.

In 20 years, Latinos (39%) and Asians (14%) together will account for more than half the state’s people. The percentage of blacks is expected to decrease slightly by then, to 6% of the population, and the proportion of Native Americans will remain constant at less than 1%.

Latino education and income levels are expected to continue trailing those of whites, unless there are major changes, researchers say.

“If [we] don’t do something to increase educational attainment levels, it will have implications on the state’s economy and tax base,” said Elias Lopez, the report’s author.

But Johnson said there is also encouraging news: some evidence suggests the sons and daughters of first generation Latinos are surpassing their immigrant parents educationally. That, he said, is a small but positive sign.

Steve Levy, director of the Palo Alto-based Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, said the state’s report highlights what he has known for some time. “The future of the California economy is inextricably linked to the education of Latino kids . . . because they will become an increasing share of the new work force,” he said.

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California Diversity

By 2000, no single ethnic group will be a majority in the state.

*

Note: Figures may not total 100 because of rounding.

Sources: California Research Bureau, California State Library