BIRTHS (NOT IMMIGRANTS) DRIVING GROWTH
Written by Vincent
Nearly 64% of the explosive growth in Mexican-Americans was driven by births, while the remaining one-third was driven by immigration, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. From 2000 to 2010, the Mexican-American population grew by 11.4 million, and of those, 7.2 million were born on US soil. This is a reversal of the last 20 years, when immigration either exceeded or was at parity with births.
But what, if any, are the implications to the US economy, and more specifically US commerce? Many businesses are well ahead of the curve and are heavily courting the US Latinos, either by leveraging Spanish media, delivering customized products, or some hybrid of both. But as more Hispanics are born on US soil and in an English speaking environment, we are left to ponder whether businesses might need to adapt their marketing strategies further.
The study found two main factors explaining the growth in Mexican-American births. First, the Hispanic population is much younger than other groups and as such has a higher fertility rate. By comparison, the average age of Mexican-Americans is now 25 while the average age for African-Americans and Whites in the US are 32 and 41, respectively.
One challenge facing US marketers today is how to capture an aging white and African-American population, while the profile of the younger age groups is increasingly Hispanic.
The second contributing factor, according to the Pew Hispanic research Center, is that older Mexican-American
women are giving birth at a much higher rate than their older female counterparts. For example, on average African-American women aged 40 – 44 gave birth to 2.0 children and white women in that age group on average gave birth to 1.8 children. Yet their counterpart Mexican-American women added nearly 2.5 children. (As a further comparison, the other major minority groups Asian-American women and all other US Hispanics in this age group gave birth to 1.8 and 1.9 children, respectively. The difference is quite significant.
At the same time, the number of immigrants has declined sharply in the past four years resulting in an overall decline of half a million Mexican immigrants in the decade ended 2010 versus the decade ended 2000. As the study suggests, this is likely attributed to tighter border enforcement, reduced job opportunities in the US, and an improved economy in Mexico.
This does not make the immigration issue any easier to reconcile. Of the 52 million Hispanics in the US, 31.8 million (or 63%) are Mexican-American. Of those, it is believed that 12.4 million are immigrants, and of those 6.5 million are in the country illegally.
However, it may just simplify how businesses tackle the changing profile of the US population. If the US Hispanic population continues to grow more rapidly through births then the acculturation process should occur more rapidly and be more transparent than if the growth were driven primarily by immigration.
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