As Americans have fewer babies, international migration will become the biggest factor in the country’s population growth, beginning perhaps as early as 14 years from now, the Census Bureau said Wednesday.
Immigration is expected to surpass natural increase – births minus deaths – sometime between 2027 and 2038, depending on the number of immigrants arriving in the U.S. That would be the first time that natural increase was not the country’s biggest reason for population growth since 1850, when the census began collecting information about where residents were born
“Our nation has had higher immigration rates in the past, particularly during the great waves of the late 19th and early 20th centuries,” Thomas Mesenbourg, the Census Bureau’s senior adviser, said in a press release. “This projected milestone reflects the mix of our nation’s declining fertility rates, the aging of the baby boomer population and continued immigration.”
The census did three new population projections covering the years from 2012 to 2060. All three show continuing immigration growth each year, as did a fourth study released last year.
The result? “Higher international migration would mean a faster growing, more diverse, and younger U.S. population,” the census report said.
Among American residents 18 and younger, the minority population –- all people other than “non-Hispanic, single-race white” -- is expected to be above 50 percent by 2018 or 2019.
Minorities, taken together, will be a majority of the U.S. population by no later than 2046, according to projections.
The biggest growth is expected to be among Hispanics, who could be as much as 31.3 percent of the nation’s population by 2060, the bureau said.
All four studies predict that the share of the working population (people 18 to 64) will decrease by 2060.