For the first time, racial minorities now represent more than half of the children born in the U.S., according to new census figures
African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities made up 50.4 percent of U.S. births in the year ending July 2011, accounting for 2.02 million births, up from 37 percent in 1990, according to The Associated Press.
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During that time period, there were 1.99 million white births, 1.05 million Hispanic births, 0.61 million black births, 0.25 million births that were classified “two or more races,” 0.19 million Asian births, 0.07 million Native American births and 0.01 million Pacific Islander births.
“This is an important landmark,” Roderick Harrison, a former head of racial statistics at the Census Bureau, told the wire service. “This generation is growing up much more accustomed to diversity than its elders.”
Birth rates have been declining for both whites and minorities since 2008, but this trend has been more pronounced for whites, which fell 11.4 percent over the past few years, compared with a drop of 3.2 percent for minorities.
There are now 114.1 million minorities in America, according to the 2010 census, representing 36.6 percent of the total U.S. population.
Four states — Hawaii, California, New Mexico and Texas — now have populations in which minorities make up a majority of the population.