US is changing color

NON-Hispanic whites will become a minority in the United States by 2050, with immigrants and their children driving 82 per cent of US population growth in coming years, a new study said today.

The US population would grow to 438 million in 2050 from 296 million in 2005 if current population trends continued, the Pew Research Centre study found.

Non-Hispanic whites would account for 47 per cent of the total in 2050, it concluded.

By that time, one in every five Americans would be a foreign-born immigrant, compared to one in eight in 2005.

"Of the 117 million people added to the population in this period due to the effect of new immigration, 67 million will be the immigrants themselves and 50 million will be their US-born children or grandchildren," the study said.

Researchers predicted that while the white population, with its lower fertility rate, aged, the Latino population, the nation's largest minority, would triple in size. Latinos would be responsible for 60 per cent of the population growth until 2050.

They would account for 29 per cent of the population, or 128 million in 2050, up from 14 per cent now, the study said.

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