Trends in Cause-Specific Mortality by Race and Hispanic Origin, 1999–2019

U.S. Population by RE Group

The size and composition of the U.S. population by RE group is determined by the differences in birth and mortality rates among the various groups, as well as their levels of net migration. The foreign-born U.S. population reached 44.8 million in 2018, representing 13.7 percent of the total population. Both the age structure and geographic origins of the U.S. immigrant population have changed dramatically since 1960, when 84 percent of U.S. immigrants were born in Europe or Canada. Today, more than three-quarters of U.S. immigrants come from Latin America or Asia and tend to be younger than previous immigrant waves. Since about 2010, newly arrived API immigrants have outnumbered those of Hispanic origin, as immigration from Latin America began a sharp decline during the Great Recession. People of API origin are projected to be the largest immigrant group by the middle of the century (Budiman and others 2020; Budiman 2020).⁹ Foreign-born individuals constitute about 10 percent of the Black population (Tamir 2022), 32 percent of the Hispanic population (Moslimani and Noe-Bustamante 2023), and 57 percent of the Asian population (Budiman and Ruiz 2021) in the United States. Further, a disproportionate share of U.S. births are to immigrant women, although the birth rate has declined for both the native- and foreign-born U.S. populations (Livingston 2019). More than three-quarters of immigrants are in the country legally and the percentage of immigrants who are naturalized U.S. citizens stood at 45 percent in 2017 (Budiman 2020).

Table 1 provides population counts for 1999 and 2019 by RE group, overall and in three broad age categories (0–24, 25–64, and 65 or older).¹⁰ For the same years, Chart 1 shows the U.S. population by RE group and single year of age from 0 to 84. Panels A and B show the population counts and Panels C and D show the percentage distributions by RE group. The WNH share of the population has declined over time, particularly at younger ages. From 1999 to 2019, the WNH population increased by about 3.8 million (Table 1). By contrast, the Hispanic, Black, and API populations rose by 26.6 million, 10.4 million, and 10.5 million, respectively. In 1999, the WNH community constituted 70.8 percent of the U.S. population. The API community accounted for 4.1 percent of the population, while Black people (13.0 percent of the population) represented a slightly larger group than those of Hispanic origin (12.2 percent). By 2019, the WNH share of the population had declined to 60.9 percent, while the API, Black, and Hispanic shares of the population respectively expanded to 6.6 percent, 14.1 percent, and 18.4 percent, making the Hispanic community the second largest RE group.

Chart 2 shows the population counts in 1999 and 2019 by age and sex for each RE group. The age structure varied substantially among the RE groups and from 1999 to 2019, although for each group, the share of the population aged 0–39 declined and the share aged 50 or older increased during that span (not shown). Hispanic individuals were the youngest population group, followed by the Black and API communities: In 2019, 42.2 percent of the Hispanic population was younger than 25, compared with 36.9 percent of Black individuals, 30.8 percent of API people, and 27.3 percent of the WNH population. The population age profiles in Chart 2 illustrate the disproportionate influence of immigration in the API and Hispanic populations relative to the Black and WNH communities. From 1999 to 2019, the API and Hispanic populations increased substantially at every age. The Hispanic population increased by 9.1 million among those younger than 25, by 14.5 million among those in the midlife ages (25–64), and by almost 3 million among those aged 65 or older. For API individuals, the population aged 65 or older more than tripled (from about 800,000 to 2.7 million), while the population in the midlife ages almost doubled, increasing by 6.1 million. By 2019, no RE group had a higher share of its population in the midlife ages than the API community (56.9 percent). By contrast, the continuing predominance of the Baby Boom generation among the Black and WNH populations is easy to distinguish in Chart 2, as the cohort of individuals aged 35–53 in 1999 shifts to the right, becoming the group aged 55–73 in 2019.

Chart 2 further reveals interesting differences in gender composition across RE groups, particularly among the Hispanic community. Men constitute a disproportionately large share of the Hispanic population aged 20–39, likely reflecting immigration patterns. In most populations, the natural male-to-female ratio at birth is typically above 1 (for example, it was 1.05 for the entire U.S. population in 2019 [not shown]). As age increases, the ratio declines, eventually dropping below 1 as all-cause mortality rates are higher among males than females. For the 2019 U.S. population, women begin to outnumber men by age 38.

Chart 3 plots the male-to-female population ratio as a function of age in 1999 and in 2019 for each RE group. In 1999, the number of females began to exceed the number of males at age 19 in the Black population, at age 24 in the API community, at age 41 among WNH individuals, and at age 46 in the Hispanic population. By 2019, the male-to-female ratio dropped below 1 at older ages than in 1999 for all RE groups. Across the midlife ages (25–64), the male-to-female ratios among the Black and API populations were substantially lower than those of the Hispanic and WNH populations. In 2019, women first outnumbered men at age 55 among the Hispanic group, age 50 for WNH individuals, age 29 for the Black population, and age 27 in the API community. Chart 3 further confirms the unusually large number of Hispanic men relative to women in early adulthood. In 1999, the male-to-female ratio for the Hispanic population aged 17–30 exceeded 1.15 but it had declined substantially by 2019. Imbalanced sex ratios can affect various economic and social variables. For instance, Angrist (2002) found that shifting migration patterns and immigration restrictions in the early 20^th century led to more uneven sex ratios among many ethnic groups, resulting in a positive effect in the likelihood of female marriage, but a decline in female labor force participation for those groups.

The Geography of Race and Hispanic Origin

Charts 4 and 5 show heterogeneity in the geographic distribution of both the overall population of the United States and the various RE groups that compose it. In Chart 4, Panels A and B respectively show U.S. states and counties by their 2019 population counts. California (39.5 million residents), Texas (almost 29 million), Florida (21.5 million), and New York (19.5 million) were the four most populous states. Five additional states (Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, and North Carolina) had populations of more than 10 million. Panel A shows that 16 states had fewer than 2.5 million residents in 2019; of these, Wyoming, Vermont, the District of Columbia, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Delaware each had fewer than 1 million residents. With county-level detail, Panel B illustrates that the population tends to concentrate on the Pacific coast and Northeast corridor, along with parts of the Southern border, the Florida peninsula, and the Great Lakes. Of the 3,142 counties in the United States, more than one-third (1,048) had fewer than 15,000 residents in 2019. Los Angeles County (CA) was the most populous, with more than 10 million people. Of the 45 U.S. counties with a population of more than 1 million, 26 were in California, Texas, Florida, and New York; the others were Cook County (IL), Maricopa and Pima Counties (AZ), Clark County (NV), King County (WA), Wayne and Oakland Counties (MI), Middlesex County (MA), Philadelphia and Allegheny Counties (PA), Franklin and Cuyahoga Counties (OH), Hennepin County (MN), Salt Lake County (UT), Fairfax County (VA), Wake and Mecklenburg Counties (NC), Fulton County (GA), and Montgomery County (MD).

Chart 5 shows, for each RE group, its percentage of the total population in each state and county in 2019. Note that a few counties in Panels D, F, and H are shaded gray to indicate populations low enough to require data suppression.¹¹ More than 90 percent of the population in Maine, Vermont, West Virginia, and New Hampshire was WNH, and the WNH population share also exceeded 80 percent in Montana, Iowa, Kentucky, Wyoming, North Dakota, Idaho, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Missouri (Panel A). By contrast, only one-quarter of the population in Hawaii was WNH, and less than one-half of residents in New Mexico (37.6 percent), California (37.9 percent), the District of Columbia (38.1 percent), Texas (42.1 percent), and Nevada (49.8 percent) were WNH. The WNH population fell between 50 percent and 60 percent in Maryland, Georgia, Florida, Arizona, New Jersey, New York, Mississippi, and Louisiana. More than one-third of U.S. counties had a population that was more than 90 percent WNH (Panel B), although those counties combined accounted for only about 10 percent of the U.S. population. By comparison, many of the most populated counties had significantly smaller shares of WNH residents, including the most populous county (Los Angeles, CA, with a WNH population share of 27.1 percent), and the third most populous (Harris, TX, with 4.7 million residents and a WNH share of 29.5 percent).

Panel C shows that the state with the highest proportion of Hispanic residents was New Mexico (49.3 percent of the population), followed by Texas (39.8 percent) and California (39.4 percent). Hispanic residents accounted for 31.7 percent of the population in Arizona, 29.2 percent in Nevada, and 26.4 percent in Florida. Between 20 percent and 25 percent of the population in New Jersey and Colorado were Hispanic, as were 19.3 percent of New York residents and 17.5 percent of Illinois residents. The lowest Hispanic population shares occurred in West Virginia (1.7 percent) and Maine (1.8 percent), and Hispanic residents also constituted less than 5 percent of the populations in Vermont, Mississippi, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Ohio, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri, and Alabama. Panel D shows that the Hispanic population generally concentrates along the Southern border, the West coast, and south Florida. In 104 U.S. counties, Hispanic people constituted at least half of the population, and only nine of them are outside of Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, or Florida: Adams, Franklin, and Yakima Counties (WA); Seward, Ford, and Finney Counties (KS); Costilla and Conejos Counties (CO); and Bronx County (NY).

The states with the highest concentrations of Black residents included the District of Columbia (47.5 percent), Mississippi (38.4 percent), Louisiana (33.5 percent), Georgia (33.4 percent), and Maryland (32.2 percent; Panel E). Black individuals also represented more than 20 percent of the population in South Carolina, Alabama, Delaware, North Carolina, and Virginia. Conversely, less than 2 percent of the population in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Vermont, and Utah was Black, and the Black population also accounted for less than 5 percent of the residents of Maine, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Oregon, Hawaii, New Mexico, North Dakota, West Virginia, Iowa, and Alaska. The counties with the highest shares of Black residents were in southern states (Panel F). In 2019, Black residents accounted for more than half of the population in 104 counties. The most populous of them were Prince George's County (MD) and Shelby County (TN), each with almost 1 million residents overall; and DeKalb County (GA) and Baltimore City (MD),¹² each with more than 500,000 residents overall. Counties with more than 1 million residents where one-third to one-half of the population is Black included Bronx and Kings Counties (NY), Fulton County (GA), Philadelphia County (PA), Wayne County (MI), and Mecklenburg County (NC).

The states with the highest percentages of API residents were Hawaii (66.2 percent) and California (16.9 percent; Panel G).¹³ Washington (11.3 percent) and Nevada and New Jersey (10.4 percent each) had the next highest percentages of API residents. Other states with an API population share of more than 7 percent were New York, Alaska, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Maryland. By contrast, 20 states had shares of API residents below 3 percent; and in West Virginia, Montana, Mississippi, Wyoming, Maine, Alabama, South Dakota, Kentucky, and North Dakota, the share was below 2 percent. With some exceptions, the API population concentrates on the West coast and portions of the Northeast corridor. The five counties for which more than half of the population is API are all in Hawaii (Panel H). In counties with a total population of at least 100,000 in 2019, the API share of residents was 20–49 percent in Santa Clara, San Francisco, Alameda, San Mateo, Orange, and Contra Costa Counties (CA); Queens County (NY); Middlesex County (NJ); King County (WA); Fort Bend County (TX); Fairfax and Loudoun Counties (VA); and Howard County (MD).