WASHINGTON — Minorities make up nearly half the children born in the United States, 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 per cent of U.S. children born in 2008, the latest census estimates available, compared to 37 per cent 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.
The U.S. study comes a day after Statistics Canada predicted that the proportion of visible minorities in Canada will explode in the next few decades.