Thread: CA:Strength in numbers by 2042 won't ensure success, experts

Education key to Latino majority
STRENGTH IN NUMBERS BY 2042 WON'T ENSURE SUCCESS, EXPERTS SAY
By Mike Swift
Mercury News
Article Launched: 07/10/2007 01:48:33 AM PDT

Latinos will become the state's majority ethnic group by 2042, according to new population projections that portray a future California whose fortunes will increasingly depend on the skills of a predominantly non-white workforce.

Population numbers released Monday by the state Department of Finance predict that 52 percent of all Californians will be Latino by 2050, when whites will make up just 26 percent of the population.

Even in Santa Clara County - where Asians made up a larger share of the 2000 population than in any other California county - Latinos will outnumber Asians by 2020 and whites by 2040, although they will not be a majority.

The forecast, probably the last until after the 2010 Census, "implies a younger non-white workforce supporting an older white retirement-age population," said Mary Heim, the state de mographer, who helped produced the projections.

Some question whether a state that has a growing mismatch between the general population and a voting population dominated by whites will make the right decisions now to ensure its future success.

"There's going to be a racial generation gap occurring," said Bill Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. He worries that white voters and corporate leaders in future decades will be "not as connected to the younger part of California, just simply because it's not their own children or their neighbors' children."

That Latinos are on a clear path to becoming the state's majority ethnic group is not new information for demographers. The state's last set of projections, in 2004, predicted it would happen by 2038, but the finance department adjusted its predictions to account for longer life expectancies that should keep more elderly whites around in future decades.
The latest view into the state's demographic future, however, underlines the degree to which California's quality of life - everything from Silicon Valley's robust housing values to its well-paying jobs - will ride on how well the state educates its native Latino children.

A crucial concern, experts said, is boosting the share of Latinos who go on to college and graduate.

"It's a big chunk of our future," said Dowell Myers, a professor of policy and planning at the University of Southern California. "These are basically the children of California. We're responsible for them, and we better make the most of them."

About 84 percent of the state's total population growth in the decade of the 2030s will be Latino, the new projections say. That dramatic growth will be driven not by immigration but by native children born to people who have immigrated here, demographers said.

"Immigrants get a lot of attention because they are the newcomers, but the babies outweigh the immigrants by a substantial margin. In the future years, it looks to me like the number of Latino immigrants is really going to be leveling off," said Myers, author of the 2007 book "Immigrants and Boomers: Forging a New Social Contract for the Future of America."

With a current population of about 38 million, California will steadily add about 5 million people each decade - passing the 40 million mark in 2012 and topping 50 million by 2032, the finance department projections say.

Los Angeles will continue to be California's largest county, passing 13 million denizens by 2050. Santa Clara County will grow much more slowly than inland counties like Riverside, Kern and San Joaquin, but will still add more than 930,000 people, the Bay Area's largest numeric growth. San Mateo County is expected to add about 108,000 residents by 2050.

By midcentury, whites will be the majority population in just 23 of 58 California counties, while Latinos will be the majority group in 22, the finance department projections show.

"I think the important thing here is that Latinos are Californians; I think it's really important to talk about it in that perspective," said Nora Vargas, executive director of the San Francisco-based Latino Issues Forum. "They are born here and they are raised here. We need to make sure these communities have the resources they need to be able to compete."

Contact Mike Swift at mswift@mercurynews.com or (40 271-3648.

http://www.mercurynews.com/valley/ci_6338684

The state's last set of projections, in 2004, predicted it would happen by 2038, but the finance department adjusted its predictions to account for longer life expectancies that should keep more elderly whites around in future decades.

awwww! Bummer! Those stupid white people keep on living! Damn them!

"It's a big chunk of our future," said Dowell Myers, a professor of policy and planning at the University of Southern California. "These are basically the children of California. We're responsible for them, and we better make the most of them."

Right! Because they are incapable to make anything for themelves. Somehow it's white people's responsibility to hand over the state to them, with step by step instructions. Keep dreaming reconquistas.

Poor California. By 2042 it will look just like Tijuana....a filthy cesspool inhabited by a lot of uneducated, illiterate, peasants. Without the so-called "white" people in California, the state is doomed.

You could THROW a FREE college education at the illegals' children, and probably 1 out of 10 would actually take it and earn a college degree. The rest will be exactly what their parents are...uneducated, illiterate, low-skilled freeloaders.

Just take a look at Los Angeles, and you can see that I'm right.

Gee what does it look like these people are working towards, I'd say handing Calif over to Mexico and they didn't even have to fight to get it back, we are just handing it to them. Helloooo you bunch fools down there!! Yes that is diverse isn't it!

Here in California, we're told that we're running out of water, the infrastructure is in a state of collapse, and the schools are too crowded and perform poorly.

Yet the same people who decry all of the above are overjoyed that our population is going to explode in the next few decades due to mass illegal migration of illiterate peasants from South America.

To say that these people are insane is a huge understatement.