Report: Population Composition Continues To Change

The US population is becoming increasingly multicultural, and more than 40% of the population will belong to one of the 3 major ethnic groups by 2019, according to a recent report [pdf] from Geoscape.

Marketing Charts reports this year, non-Hispanic whites are estimated to account for 62.1% of the US population, down from 75.8% in 1990. By 2019, that figure will be down to 59.5%, as Americans of Hispanic and Asian origin will grow to represent about one-quarter of the population.

That’s a drastic change from 1990, when these groups combined to account for 11.6% of the population. Between 1990 and this year, the share of Americans of Hispanic origin has doubled from 8.8% to 17.7%, while for non-Hispanic Asian and Pacific Islanders, their population shares are up from 2.8% to 5.1%.

Based on these trends, Geoscape projects that the non-Hispanic white population will drop to a minority by 2040. In late 2012, the Census Bureau forecast that the US will become a majority-minority nation in 2043.

In sum, among the projected 334.1 million Americans in 2019:

• 198.9 million will be non-Hispanic white
• 64.8 million will be Hispanic
• 41.5 million will be Black
• 19.3 million will be Asian and Pacific Islanders

Of course, these minority groups have various characteristics, and can broken up into sub-cultures across different variables, including language.

Among Hispanics, for instance, Geoscape says that:

• 22% are English-Dependent
• 31% are Bi-Lingual English Preferred
• 14% are Bi-Lingual
• 19% are Bi-Lingual Spanish Preferred
• 14% are Spanish-Dependent