It puts non-Hispanic white births in the minority for the first time.
Sociologists believe the economic slowdown has contributed to a greater decline in birth rates among white people.
The US Census Bureau recorded 2.02m babies born to minorities in the year to July 2011, making just over half of all births, compared with 37% in 1990.
'Important landmark'
US birth rates have been declining, but the drop has been larger for white people.
The number of white births has fallen by 11.4% since 2008, compared with 3.2% for minorities, according to Kenneth Johnson, a sociologist at the University of New Hampshire.
Roderick Harrison, a former chief of racial statistics at the Census Bureau, now a sociologist at Howard University told Associated Press: "This is an important landmark. This generation is growing up much more accustomed to diversity than its elders."
The nation's minority population now makes up 36.6% of the total US population. Continue Reading
No comments:
Post a Comment