What will US demographics be in 2050?

(February 2008) A new report from the Pew Research Center projects that immigration will propel the U.S. population total to 438 million by 2050, from 303 million today (see Figure 1). Along with this growth, the racial and ethnic profile of Americans will continue to shift—with non-Hispanic whites losing their majority status. (U.S. Population Projections: 2005-2050)

Figure 1
Actual and Projected U.S. Population Increase, 1960 to 2050

Source: Jeffery S. Passel and D’Vera Cohn, U.S. Population Projections: 2005-2050 (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2008), accessed online at www.pewhispanic.org/files/reports/85.pdf, on Feb. 14, 2008.

It is no surprise that immigrants and their descendants will play a large role in future U.S. population growth, as they do now and have for much of the country’s history. But the projections detailed in the new report, authored by demographer Jeffrey S. Passel and writer D’Vera Cohn, differ from previous projections from the U.S. Census Bureau by assuming that the rate of immigration will hold steady—sending the net number of immigrants from 1.4 million per year in 2005 to 2.1 million per year by 2050 as the population total rises. This assumed increase in immigrants is, as the Pew report puts it, “in line with, but somewhat slower than, the growth trend of the last several decades.”

The Pew projections also offer a unique analysis of immigrants’ role by taking into account the different birth rates of first-, second-, and third-generation immigrants. The authors estimate that immigrants arriving after 2005, and their children and grandchildren, will account for 82 percent of the population growth between 2005 and 2050.

Older Age Profile, Lower Birth Rates Slow Growth of Non-Hispanic Whites

The report also provides considerable detail on the country’s future ethnic makeup (see Figure 2). With little immigration and low fertility, the non-Hispanic white population is projected to edge from 200 million to 207 million between 2005 and 2050, while the three other major racial and ethnic groups will see much more growth. The share of Non-Hispanic whites is slated to slip from 67 percent to 47 percent over the 45-year period. Indeed, they would decline in number by 2050, if not for immigration.

Figure 2
Increase in Size of Major U.S. Racial and Ethnic Groups, 2005 to 2050

Source: Jeffery S. Passel and D’Vera Cohn, U.S. Population Projections: 2005-2050 (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2008), accessed online at www.pewhispanic.org/files/reports/85.pdf, on Feb. 14, 2008.

With the majority population holding steady, the significant growth must come from some other group—and it does. This is where the assumptions about immigration levels become crucial. Under Pew’s assumed immigration and fertility rates for major ethnic groups, the number of Hispanics will rise from 42 million to 128 million, and Asians from 14 million to 41 million.

Predicting Future Immigration

Immigration is the most volatile demographic variable. Because it is affected by unforeseeable political, economic, and social forces, it is the most difficult to predict. Previous U.S. projections usually assumed either that immigration would taper off or would remain constant. But actual immigration levels have run above projected levels, and the resulting projections underestimated U.S. population growth. The 2000 Census count was about 7 million higher than expected, an indication that immigration was higher than assumed in the 1990s.

Given that U.S. population projections depend so heavily on the immigration assumption, and that immigration is certainly in the forefront of national attention, what are the pros and cons of an assumption that immigration will increase, albeit rather slowly?

Arguments for the immigration increase can begin with fundamental changes ushered in by the Immigration and Nationality Act amendments of 1965, which opened immigration to all regions of the world. Previous laws had favored the traditional sending countries in Europe. Immigration legislation since that time has only served to increase immigration further and no laws to seriously curb immigration are on the horizon. Indeed, some want to keep immigrants coming: viewing them as necessary to fill gaps in an aging U.S. labor force and to provide support for retirees.

The continued increase in immigration also suggests that the United States will continue to symbolize a better life for millions of people from developing countries, with a stronger economy and greater opportunities.

Global demographic trends also point to continued U.S. immigration. The populations of many sending countries and regions continue to grow, creating an expanding pool of potential immigrants. Africa will grow by about 1 billion between 2005 and 2050, India by at least a half billion. Latin America, the source of at least one-half of today’s immigrants, will add another 40 million or so.

Immigrants in the U.S. maintain ties to their home communities, and family reunification provisions in immigration law usually mean continued and sometimes increasing flow into the country. Unforeseen wars and political crises may bring new groups of immigrants as refugees, creating new links to countries abroad.

Why would immigration cease or slow? We could see some type of national consensus that population growth must be curbed in some way to preserve the quality of life and the environment. Economic conditions could improve in sending countries, dampening the enthusiasm for coming to the United States. It seems unlikely, but the U.S. economy could deteriorate to the point that it will no longer attract newcomers.

Regardless of what may happen in the future, the United States will become a more diverse country: The only question is how diverse. The assumptions underlying the new Pew report, as does any projection of the U.S. population, cause us to stop and think about the national demographic future.

Carl Haub is senior demographer at the Population Reference Bureau.

The U.S. has just entered the new decade of the 2020s.

What does our country look like today, and what will it look like 10 years from now, on Jan. 1, 2030? Which demographic groups in the U.S. will grow the most, and which groups will not grow as much, or maybe even decline in the next 10 years?

I am a demographer and I have examined population data from the U.S. Census Bureau and from the Population Division of the United Nations.

Projections show that whites will decline; the number of old people will increase; and racial minorities, mainly Hispanics, will grow the most, making them the main engine of demographic change in the U.S. for the next 10 years and beyond.

1. There will be more of us

The U.S. population today, at the start of 2020, numbers just over 331 million people.

The U.S. is the third largest country in the world, outnumbered only by the two demographic billionaires, China and India, at just over 1.4 billion and just under 1.4 billion, respectively.

Ten years from now, the U.S. population will have almost 350 million people. China and India will still be bigger, but India with 1.5 billion people will now be larger than China, with 1.46 billion.

2. The population will get older.

The U.S. is getting older and it’s going to keep getting older.

Today, there are over 74.1 million people under age 18 in the U.S. country. There are 56.4 million people age 65 and older.

Ten years from now, there will almost be as many old folks as there are young ones. The numbers of young people will have grown just a little to 76.3 million, but the numbers of old people will have increased a lot – to 74.1 million. A lot of these new elderly will be baby boomers.

For example, take the really old folks – people over the age of 100. How many centenarians are in the U.S. population today and how many are there likely to be 10 years from now?

According to demographers at the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of centenarians in the U.S. grew from over 53,000 in 2010 to over 90,000 in 2020. By 2030, there will most likely be over 130,000 centenarians in the U.S.

But this increase of centenarians by 2030 is only a small indication of their growth in later decades. In the year of 2046, the first group of surviving baby boomers will reach 100 years, and that’s when U.S. centenarians will really start to grow. By 2060 there will be over 603,000. That’s a lot of really old people.

I sometimes ask my undergraduate students how many of them have ever actually seen a person 100 years old or older. In my classes of 140 or more students, no more than maybe six raise their hands. Lots more college students will be raising their hands when they are asked that question in 2060.

3. Racial proportions will shift.

In 2020, non-Hispanic white people, hereafter called whites, are still the majority race in the U.S., representing 59.7% of the U.S. population.

In my research with the demographer Rogelio Saenz, we have shown that the white share of the U.S. population has been dropping since 1950 and it will continue to go down.

Today, after whites, the Hispanic population is the next biggest group at 18.7% of the U.S., followed by blacks and Asians.

What will the country look like racially in 2030? Whites will have dropped to 55.8% of the population, and Hispanics will have grown to 21.1%. The percentage of black and Asian Americans will also grow significantly.

So between now and 2030, whites as a proportion of the population will get smaller, and the minority race groups will all keep getting bigger.

Eventually, whites will become a minority, dropping below 50% of the U.S. population in around the year of 2045.

However, on the first day of 2020, whites under age 18 were already in the minority. Among all the young people now in the U.S., there are more minority young people than there are white young people.

Among old people age 65 and over, whites are still in the majority. Indeed white old people, compared to minority old people, will continue to be in the majority until some years after 2060.

Hispanics and the other racial minorities will be the country’s main demographic engine of population change in future years; this is the most significant demographic change Americans will see.

I’ve shown above how much older the U.S. population has become and will become in the years ahead. Were it not for the racial minorities countering this aging of the U.S. population, the U.S. by 2030 and later would have become even older than it is today and will be in 2030.

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