The majority of children in the US under the age of five was non-white last year, marking the first time since the country’s establishment that white kids in the age cohort constituted a mere plurality.
The Census Bureau said on Thursday that America’s youngest children were “majority-minority” in 2014, with those not classified as “non-Hispanic, single race white” making up 50.2 percent of their population.
Noting that Millennials—Americans born between 1982 and 2000—are less ethnically homogeneous than baby-boomers, the bureau pointed out that “the population as a whole has become more racially and ethnically diverse in just the last decade, with the percentage minority climbing from 32.9 percent in 2004 to 37.9 percent in 2014.”
The report is not unexpected. In 2012, the Census Bureau found that the majority of babies in the US was non-white for the first time since the country was established.
The Bureau also noted that the white population in the US has uniquely shrank in recent years.
“All race and ethnic groups except single-race, non-Hispanic whites had more births than deaths between 2013 and 2014,” it noted. “This group had 61,841 more deaths than births.”
The Census Bureau has predicted that white people will no longer make up the majority of the US population by 2043.
