Tag Archives: demography

“The era of great Mexican migration is probably over”

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A long profile of a Mexican family who moved to Chicago and then recently moved back to Mexico contains some consequential big-picture information on migration: the flood of Mexican immigrants into the United States in recent decades is “probably over.”

With opportunities limited by a still-struggling economy, the historic wave of Mexican immigration appears to have reversed after decades of growth that transformed the U.S., according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonprofit research group.

With the change of direction that may again reshape communities in both countries, about 1.4 million Mexican immigrants in the U.S. returned home from 2005 to 2010, most voluntarily, the center reported last spring. That number, which also includes deportations, is roughly double the number of Mexicans who left the U.S. between 1995 and 2000.

“I believe the era of great Mexican migration is probably over,” said Allert Brown-Gort, a fellow at Notre Dame University’s Kellogg Institute for International Studies who has written extensively about Latin American immigration in the Midwest.

With jobs lacking, “slowly but surely your options start getting cut down,” Brown-Gort said. “What’s going to happen in Chicago if these workers go back, to the extent that they’re younger workers, is that it will be taking a wedge out of certain areas of the economy.”

This is a trend that has long-term implications for the United States. From the mid-1960s until the late 2000s, the United States experienced a large influx of immigrants. One way to measure this is to look at the foreign-born population in the United States which increased from 9.6 million in 1970 (4.7% of the total population) to almost 40 million in 2010 (12.9% of the total population). This flood of immigrants from Mexico and other countries led to opportunities, like new workers and population growth in cities and states that would not have had much otherwise, and new concerns. As suggested, we may look back at recent decades and see it as “the era of great Mexican migration.” Not having as many immigrants in the coming years will certainly lead to changes.

This also reminds me of the final pages of a recent book I just read: The Revenge of Geography by Robert Kaplan. After spending most of the book looking at pivotal regions of the world where a variety of civilizations and cultures have and will meet (Eastern Europe, the steppes of Russia, central China, northern India, Iran, etc.), Kaplan turns to the United States which has generally avoided such interaction by virtue of being across two oceans. Yet, Kaplan suggests while the United States has spent much of recent decades working on foreign policy concerns in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, it should pay more attention to its relationship with Mexico. In particular, Kaplan argues the American Southwest and northern Mexico could have a very productive relationship moving forward as they share a number of economic, social, and cultural concerns.

Lorton, Virginia illustrates the growing diversity across the US

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The Washington Post takes a closer look at Lorton, Virginia, recently named as one of the most diverse communities in the United States, and discusses how Lorton illustrates broader trends:

Non-whites no longer stick out in a crowd. Lorton is one of the most diverse places in the entire country, according to a new study of census data by two sociologists from Pennsylvania State University. The 19,000 residents are roughly a third white and a third black, and there are significant numbers of Asians, Hispanics and multiracial residents…

What’s happened in Lorton is typical of a demographic sea change that is transforming the Washington area and much of the country. Non-Hispanic whites are a minority in a growing number of metropolitan areas, including Washington. Predominantly white neighborhoods are a relic of the past. New developments that appeal to young families are among the most diverse, drawing Hispanics and Asians who, on average, are much younger than the whites.

Although metropolitan areas are the most diverse, small towns and the countryside are also attracting more minorities. The Penn State researchers found that whites are the predominant group in barely one-third of all places of 1,000 residents or more, compared with two-thirds in 1980.

“Racial and ethnic diversity is no longer a vicarious experience for Americans,” said Barrett A. Lee, one of the study’s authors. “It used to be something that was recognized and debated at the national level. But now even residents of small towns and rural areas are coming face to face with people of different races or ethnicity in their daily lives, not just on the evening news.”

This is part of everyday life in many communities across the United States.

Stark demographic figures for Japan

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A post at New Geography lays out several population figures for Japan:

In 2007, Japan’s population reached a tipping point. It was the first year in its history (excluding 1945) where the number of deaths exceeded the number of births. In 2007 there were 2,000 more deaths than births. In 2011 that figure rose to approximately 204,000, and it’s a figure that is accelerating. Indeed, at 23.1%, Japan has the highest proportion of over-65s in the world, and at 13.2%, the world’s lowest proportion of under 14s. Japan’s population peaked at 127.7 million in 2007, and is forecast to shrink to a mere 47 million by 2100.

While the topic of declining fertility rates in many industrialized nations has been discussed for a while now, I’m still not sure we are prepared to deal with the idea of declining populations. Particularly in the United States, we associate population increases with progress. An example: cities that lose population are seen as doing something wrong while cities that are growing are successes. A similar mindset exists with religious congregations. Japan is clearly an advanced nation yet what happens if it loses more than half of its population in the period of a century? And what happens if this is done by choice? Throughout human history, population loss is typically tied to factors like disease, ecological conditions, and war, not by a populace who isn’t interested in having more children.

A thought: what if we end up in a Children of Men type world that is brought about because humans simply don’t want to have children anymore?

Demographic change: more minority birth than whites

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A number of news outlets reported last week on another marker of demographic change in America: there are now more minority babies born than white babies.

“This is an important landmark,” said Roderick Harrison, a former chief of racial statistics at the Census Bureau who is now a sociologist at Howard University. “This generation is growing up much more accustomed to diversity than its elders.”…

As a whole, the nation’s minority population continues to rise, following a higher-than-expected Hispanic count in the 2010 census. Minorities increased 1.9 percent to 114.1 million, or 36.6 percent of the total U.S. population, lifted by prior waves of immigration that brought in young families and boosted the number of Hispanic women in their prime childbearing years…

Minorities made up roughly 2.02 million, or 50.4 percent of U.S. births in the 12-month period ending July 2011. That compares with 37 percent in 1990…

Births actually have been declining for both whites and minorities as many women postponed having children during the economic slump. But the drop since 2008 has been larger for whites, who have a median age of 42. The number of white births fell by 11.4 percent, compared with 3.2 percent for minorities, according to Kenneth Johnson, a sociologist at the University of New Hampshire.

I think the last paragraph above is particularly interesting. The story isn’t just that there is a large minority and immigrant population that is having lots of children. Rather, whites and minorities are having fewer children but whites particularly have chosen to have fewer children. How much is this tied to more American living alone?

Of course, it will take some time for all of this to move through the generations. For example, it will be roughly two decades before you have more minorities than whites turning 18 and exercising this at the polls.

New Census figures: population 80.7% urban, most dense cities in the West

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The US Census Bureau released Monday some figures about cities in America. Here are the updated 2010 statistics about urbanization:

 The nation’s urban population increased by 12.1 percent from 2000 to 2010, outpacing the nation’s overall growth rate of 9.7 percent for the same period, according to the U.S. Census Bureau…
Urban areas — defined as densely developed residential, commercial and other nonresidential areas — now account for 80.7 percent of the U.S. population, up from 79.0 percent in 2000. Although the rural population — the population in any areas outside of those classified as “urban” — grew by a modest amount from 2000 to 2010, it continued to decline as a percentage of the national population.

Translation: the proportion of Americans living in urban areas didn’t change very much over the last 10 years. In comparison, the urban population jumped 6% from 1970 to 1980, 3% from 1980 to 1990, and 3% from 1990 to 2000 (see figures on pg. 33 of this Census document). Does this mean we are nearing a plateau in terms of the proportion of Americans living in urban areas?

And here are the new figures for the densest metropolitan areas:

The nation’s most densely populated urbanized area is Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, Calif., with nearly 7,000 people per square mile. The San Francisco-Oakland, Calif., area is the second most densely populated at 6,266 people per square mile, followed by San Jose, Calif. (5,820 people per square mile) and Delano, Calif. (5,483 people per square mile). The New York-Newark, N.J., area is fifth, with an overall density of 5,319 people per square mile…
Of the 10 most densely populated urbanized areas, nine are in the West, with seven of those in California. Urbanized areas in the U.S., taken together, had an overall population density of 2,534 people per square mile.

These new figures continue to support one of the trick questions about cities: which city is the most dense? A common answer is New York City because of Manhattan but the densest is actually Los Angeles. Of course, some of this has to do with Southern and Western cities having more space because of the drying up of annexation opportunities in Midwestern and Northeastern cities in the early 1900s.

While these are very interesting figures, where is the percentage of Americans who live in suburbs?

Latino population growth slows in some US cities

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While sociologists and demographers have watched with interest as the Latino population grows in the United States, new data suggests the rate of that growth has slowed in some cities in recent years:

But with the economic downturn that began in 2007, the meltdown of the housing market and a slowdown of new foreign arrivals, many of these same communities have seen the Latino growth rates flatten out.

Of 107 metro areas where the number of Latinos doubled between 2000 and 2010, almost all showed a slowdown in population growth by the end of the decade, according to William Frey, a Brookings Institution demographer who analyzed recently updated figures from the Census Bureau…

Los Angeles, New York and other major metropolitan areas that have long served as gateways and hubs for immigrants still notched small upticks in Latino growth rates at the end of the decade. In fact, the Latino population in the Los Angeles area, which was flat in 2006 at the peak of the housing market nationally, expanded by 1.5% in 2010. New York showed a similar pattern; its Latino growth slowed in the middle of the decade but was up by 2.4% in 2010.

The reason is that many Latinos who had left the big metropolitan areas to find jobs and cheaper housing in smaller cities earlier in the decade returned to those big cities during the tough economic times, Frey said.

The implication here is that economic pressures have slowed these growth rates. A few other thoughts:

1. I’m surprised there are no figures about the overall migration rate into the United States in recent years. Does that factor into this?

2. The Latino population hasn’t declined in these cities but rather has grown as smaller rates. Was the expectation that the growth rate would continue at such a high rate? In other words, is this the economy or also an inevitable/predicted slowdown?

3. Frey argues that cities are still important for minorities. At the same time, we have seen more research in recent years that suggests more minorities and immigrants are moving to the suburbs. So, there are still sizable minority populations in cities that anchor the minority populations even as there is more opportunity and movement to the suburbs?

Changes to American housing going to come from Hispanics and echo boomers?

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At a recent conference, several experts talked about how two demographic groups are influential for American housing trends in the coming years:

Most of the country’s population growth is happening in minority populations – the same groups hit the hardest by the housing downturn in terms of lost household wealth and declines in homeownership rates.

“That is where housing issues will be addressed or not addressed,” demographer Steve Murdock of Rice University said. “Hispanics are the key to this growth.”

And echo boomers – members of another group hit hard by the recession as they’ve struggled to start careers – will be the generation driving the next wave of household formation.

“In the next 10 years, the echo boomers are almost the entire story,” said Rolf Pendall, director of the Urban Institute’s Metropolitan Housing & Communities Policy Center…

Cisneros said a Hispanic affinity for owning a home may help moderate some of the drive toward renting. “Somewhere deep in our DNA as Latinos is homeownership,” Cisneros said.

Baby boomers, the group that’s long driven trends, still is doing so, but instead of creating McMansions, they will start to influence building of nursing homes.

I assume Cisneros, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Bill Clinton, means that Latinos have a cultural affinity for homeownership. Thus far, this has not happened so much in the United States: for example, in 2008 the homeownership rate for Latinos was 48.9% and 47.5% for blacks compared to 74.9%. However, in Mexico, the homeownership rate is between 80-90% (2004 figures here, 1999 figures here).

Add this to suggestions from some that Generation Y also wants new kinds of housing (previous posts here, here, and here) and it looks like there might be quite a bit of change in the American housing market in the future. Our current system isn’t too different in houses and layout than it was decades ago.

Verdict: very limited baby boom in Chicago due to Feb 2011 snowstorm

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It is a common story that natural disasters lead to baby booms as residents have little else to do except spend “quality time together” (a perhaps unintentional euphemism from the story cited in the next sentence). But the academic research on the topic isn’t so clear – here is a quick review from Friday’s front page story in the Chicago Tribune:

Udry’s [negative] finding [regarding a lengthy 1970 New York City blackout] is frequently viewed as the final word in “disaster babies” — the popular debunking website Snopes.com cites it in declaring the phenomenon a myth — but more contemporary research suggests there might be something to the idea.

A 2005 study of birth rates following the Oklahoma City bombing looked at 10 years of data and found that the counties closest to the site had indeed experienced higher than expected numbers of births after the attack…

But perhaps the most intriguing evidence supporting the idea of disaster babies was published last year by Brigham Young University economist Richard Evans. He and his colleagues looked at hurricane-prone counties on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and compared birth rates that came nine months after the announcement of impending storms.

They found that while the rates went up after the mildest expected disruption (a tropical storm watch) they went down after the most serious (a hurricane warning)…

If Evans is right that the blizzard would only produce a 2% increase in the birth rate, this is not a huge jump. In fact, Evans is cited later in the story saying that this would only be a difference of a “few dozen births” throughout the Chicago region of 8.3 million people. So if there is an effect, it is minimal. But urban legends have lives of their own – another example is the recurring issue of tainted Halloween candy that sociologist Joel Best gamely tries to stamp out.

What about other data regarding the February blizzard like a rise in heart attacks or back injuries or other medical traumas? I can think we can be pretty sure that there was a lot of shoveling that took place.

Even with a small drive, it took quite a while to clear all that snow.

Claim: 2012 election will be decided by “Walmart Moms”

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Each new election cycle seems to bring about claims about a previously underappreciated demographic group that candidates need to pay attention to. Several pollsters argue that “Walmart Moms” will help decide the 2012 elections:

From the Hill: “Republican pollster Neil Newhouse and Democratic pollster Margie Omero are going shopping at Walmart. For voters. The pair told attendees at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast this morning that a key demographic in 2012 will be a group of voters they call Walmart Moms. The successors to Soccer Moms and Hockey Moms, Walmart Moms are female voters with children 18 or younger who shop at the discount retailer at least once a month. According to Newhouse and Omero, these women make up 14% of the electorate.”

Laugh at their clothes. Laugh at their fashion faux pas. They’ll see you on Election Day.

I wonder how much these “Walmart Moms” line up with the suburban independent demographic that Joel Kotkin argued has determined the outcome of the last few national elections.

More on what “Walmart Moms” care about when voting:

Walmart Moms are more interested in microeconomic issues such as college affordability than macroeconomic concerns such as the debt ceiling. The literature the pollsters distributed at the breakfast said, “It will be important for candidates to clearly communicate how their policies or ideas will personally impact these women and their households for the better.”

So it is about household economics and basic middle-class consumer items (groceries + college educations). Is there a politician that could effectively link these micro and macroeconomic concerns so that the American public understands the relationship between the two?

h/t Instapundit

Path for sociology PhDs: official demographers

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Amidst conversations that graduate programs could provide students more help in pursuing non-academic positions, I was reminded of this career path that sociologists can pursue: demography within the public sector.

Steve Murdock, the former head of the U.S. Census Bureau, will be the keynote speaker at the annual general assembly of the Golden Crescent Regional Planning Commission on Tuesday.

Murdock, now a sociology professor at Rice University, was also the first official state demographer for Texas.

He was named one of the 50 most influential Texans by Texas Business in 1997 and as one of the 25 most influential persons in Texas by Texas Monthly in 2005.

According to Murdock’s CV, he has spent much of his career in government, working at the Texas State Data Center, serving as Texas’ first state demographer, and heading the US Census Bureau in 2008 and 2009. This position also seems to have led to some notoriety. How many states have official demographers?

Between Murdock and his successor at the US Census Bureau, Robert Groves, the Census Bureau seems like a good non-academic place for sociology PhDs to land. I wonder how many current and past employees have sociology backgrounds.