Race & Ethnicity

Fifty-three percent of immigrants in this country are naturalized citizens and eligible to vote. It is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish naturalized citizens from noncitizens by appearance, surnames, or facility with English alone, as the population of eligible voters also includes native-born offspring of previous generations of immigrants.

Categories that are inaccurateFor more than thirty years, media headlines have touted a population tipping point in which the white majority is overtaken numerically by minorities of all other races and ethnicities. These headlines are misleading. The “white” majority only seems to be disappearing because a growing number of white Americans are counted as minorities […]

Arguably, the most persistent demographic trend through the centuries in Virginia and the U.S. has been the difference in socioeconomic status between Black Americans and non-Black Americans. By many measures the socioeconomic gap between Black Americans and non-Black Americans has not changed considerably in half a century, adding fuel to assertions that many of our […]

In 1998, President Bill Clinton startled an audience of students by making this statement:“In a little more than 50 years there will be no majority race in the United States. No other nation in history has gone through demographic change of this magnitude in so short a time.” While few people in 1998 were aware […]

I recently wrote a post about how Asians in Virginia are often stereotyped as a successful minority due to their high median household income and their significant share of employment in STEM-related occupations. Despite being collectively identified as “Asians,” the Asian population is heterogeneous, comprised of more than thirty different nationalities and ethnic groups. The following […]

Last month our office released Virginia’s population projections for 2020 until 2040. If you combed through the data tables, then you may have noticed one striking prediction—Whites will make up less than half of Virginia’s population by 2040. Recently, the Census Bureau made a similar projection for the nation as a whole. While these types […]

During most of the 20th century, the neighborhoods where people lived and worked in Richmond — even the boundaries of the city — were shaped by race. For decades after WWII, the city’s leaders fought a well-publicized battle to maintain this system and prevent the city’s population from becoming majority black. In recent years, Richmond […]

In recent decades, the rapid growth of the Hispanic population in the United States has easily been the most discussed population trend. Fueled by immigration and births, the U.S. Hispanic population grew from 4 percent of the population in 1970 to 16 percent—or over 50 million—by 2010. The increase in the U.S. Hispanic population has […]

This is one of my favorite demographic maps. It was produced by the Census Bureau to show the most commonly reported ancestry for each county in the United States in 2000. Even though the data is over 13 years old, the map remains very popular. Largest Ancestry: 2000 Since a follow-up map for 2010 has […]

Following the November election, much of the coverage focused on both the current and future impact of changing demographics. Changes in household structure and family formation, population aging, and increases in diversity are population trends that will continue to play out over the coming decades. Virginia’s demographic landscape, like the nation’s, is projected to shift substantially […]