A July 15 article in the Wall Street Journal by Miriam Jordan points out the following:
“The skyrocketing growth of Latinos in the U.S., once driven by immigration, is now fueled by births, chiefly by Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, according to a new analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. The size of the country’s fastest-growing group has increased 43% since 2000, and more than doubled since 1990, to 50.5 million last year, when Hispanics accounted for nearly one in six U.S. residents and for 23% of people under the age of 18. In the last decade, nearly 60% of that growth came from births rather than new immigrants, the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan think tank, said.
The population of Latinos of Mexican origin, who represent nearly two-thirds of U.S. Hispanics, grew by 7.2 million between 2000 and 2010 as a result of births, but the Washington-based research center attributed only about 4.2 million to immigrant arrivals. In the previous two decades, the number of new Mexican immigrants in the U.S. either matched or exceeded the number of births. The current surge in births follows the massive wave of Hispanic immigration to the U.S. that began in the 1970s. The tilt suggests that descendants of immigrants could be the main engine of U.S. population growth for decades to come.
Mr. Potter, the Texas state demographer, says the higher fertility among Hispanics is unlikely to last forever. ‘As the Hispanic population becomes more mainstream, fertility rates will decline,’ he said. Some towns say Hispanics have helped them weather the economic downturn. But their arrival has also has posed challenges, such as pressure on schools to absorb new children. ‘We just have to get through this transition time,” says John R. Weeks, a demographer at San Diego State University. Ultimately, he says, ‘the children of immigrants are going to buoy up the economy. They are going to pay for Medicare and Social Security for the aging white population.’”
Editor’s note: Dr. Weeks is the Director of the International Population Center and a Distinguished Professor of Geography at San Diego State University with which we have a joint PhD program. Thanks to Professor López-Carr for bringing this material to our attention.
