California’s Hispanic population will equal that of whites this year before becoming the state’s largest demographic group in 2014 for the first time since statehood in 1850, according to a report by the California Department of Finance released last Thursday. The growth of the Hispanic population is also likely to propel the Californian Hispanic advertising and media market to new heights.
California’s Hispanic population will equal that of whites in 2013 before becoming the state’s largest demographic group in 2014 for the first time since statehood in 1850, a government report showed on Thursday.
By 2020, Hispanics will make up 40.8 percent of the California population and whites will comprise 36.6 percent, with Asians at 13.4 percent and black residents at 5.6 percent, according to the California Department of Finance Report. The Golden State’s overall population will grow to 50 million in 2049, the report said. The state will also remain one of the younger U.S. states for the next two decades, due in part to its role as a main gateway for immigrants, the report added.
Nationwide Shift
That change in the most populous U.S. state will make it the third where whites do not comprise a majority of the population, after New Mexico and Hawaii. The shift is occurring alongside nationwide growth in the Hispanic population, which grew to 16.7 percent of the total in 2011 from 12.5 percent in 2000, according to U.S. Census figures.
The newly released report from the California Department of Finance, which regularly crunches demographic figures, says that whites comprised 40 percent of the state’s population in 2010, with Hispanics at 38 percent. California has 38 million residents in total. Growth has been particularly strong in the so-called Emerging Hispanic markets (generally smaller markets that don’t belong to the top ten Hispanic markets).
