Does anyone recall being asked to vote on this transition? If ever there was a time for reasonable persons to consider the concept of a Nation Within a Nation, that time is now.
The news: The United States has always been a nation in flux, but rarely has it seen the volume of game-changing shifts it will experience between now and 2060.
Some changes are apparent already — the racial makeup, political preferences and tech savvy of today’s youth have had pundits wringing their hands over America’s future for years. Yet until last week, few had condensed the relevant data into an easily digested stream of information.
Enter the Pew Research Center. In a new report titled “The Next America,” the think tank poured decades of demographic research into an eye-opening multimedia project that takes current patterns and predicts their long-term impact over the next five decades. The result is a simple but fascinating look at the America of tomorrow.
According to the study, here are nine trends that will inevitably define our nation’s future — for better or for worse:
1. What happened to all the white people?
2043 has widely been cited as the “year of the white minority.”
According to this chart (at source –ed.), that’s when our Caucasian population will dip below 50% and be overtaken by the combined number of Asians, blacks, Hispanics and other minorities. By 2060, whites will make up just 43% percent of Americans, a staggering 42% drop since 1960. Hispanics, on the other hand, are projected to nearly double their numbers, from 16% today to 31% in 2060.
This could radically reconceptualize issues of representation and power. Areas like government, media and higher education are currently controlled by whites, but as their numbers wane, so will their dominance. Will current racial inequalities subside as a result? Only time will tell.
2. Kim and Kanye, you are not alone.
A major factor fuelling this shift is the growing rate of intermarriage. Assuming these couples reproduce, Pew asks whether our current racial categories will even “still make sense” in 35 years.
National Geographic dedicated its 125th anniversary issue to this very question last year, assembling a striking photo series that shows just how profoundly racial lines are being blurred.
Image Credit: National Geographic
Writer Lise Funderburg suggests that previously unheard of identities — like “Blackanese,” “Filatino” and “Korgentinian” — might be commonplace in a matter of years. How this impacts the U.S. census alone will be worth the price of admission. The implications will be fascinating to observe.
3. Borders are so 1980.
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