The future is now: Nonwhite babies now outnumber white babies in the U.S., according to the latest census data.
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Black, Hispanic, Asian and multiracial babies accounted for more than half of all children under age 2 in the U.S., the Associated Press reports via msn.com. Whites, by contrast, make up the bulk of older Americans, accounting for 80 percent of Americans age 65 and older, and 73 percent of people 45 to 64.
In another major demographic shift, the percentage of African-American households headed by unmarried women is greater than that of those headed by married heterosexual couples, a review of the census data also found.
The two-percentage-point difference (30 percent female-headed vs. 28 percent married couples) marked the first time that households headed by unmarried women outnumbered those of married couples among any racial or ethnic group since at least 1950, demographer William H. Frey of the Brookings Institution told the AP.
Demographers say the numbers provide the clearest confirmation yet of a changing social order, one in which racial and ethnic minorities will become the U.S. majority by midcentury.
“We’re moving toward an acknowledgment that we’re living in a different world than the 1950s, where married or two-parent heterosexual couples are now no longer the norm for a lot of kids, especially kids of color,” said Laura Speer, coordinator of the Kids Count project for the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Source: the Associated Press via msn.com.
As the nation’s adults get older and whiter while its youngest citizens get blacker and browner, it will be interesting to see how the dynamic plays out in the continuing debates over Medicare and public education.
Read more at msn.com.
In other news: Michelle Obama Reflects on Apartheid.
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