Latino Year 2020

You have to be a little bit on the geeky side to appreciate surveys and data collection. Marketing was one of my majors in college so I have an affection for this field. But that is not my excuse; deep down inside I am a geek.

Market research is the educated surmise of tons of raw data and applying it to a field of interest. It is plainly the art of seeing what is now in order to take an educated guess of what is to come resulting in an advantegous position. (Definition-mine).

The Pew Hispanic Center recently reviewed the mass amounts of data relevant to Hispanic demographics and came up with some rather interesting conclusions. Well, to put it plainly and cutting directly to the chase-Latinos are having a lot of babies!

The Pew, states it a little bit more professionally than that however, "The Rise of the Second Generation: Changing Patterns in Hispanic Population Growth." The study states that the rise in the Hispanic population is due not to the influx of immigrations but, the native births within the United States. Facts fly out at you in this report like Latino immigrant fertility rates are the highest in the nation: 3.51 births per woman compared to 1.84 for non-Hispanics, 2.53 for blacks and 2.60 for Asian immigrants. Whew! What you may not read in the study is that it is conclusive to say that there is a lot of activity going on behind closed doors.

More amazing the study showed that even if larger amounts of immigrants came here new born births would still catch up and surpass them-and it would only take five additional years than at current levels. I warned you this may be a little geeky.

The great thing about this study is that it is not a generalization. Hispanic populations are broken down into 1st generation, 2nd generation, and 3rd generations. It shows which generation is more likely to intermarry with other races. Which speaks English as a primary language, which is better educated, and which will make more money. But, that may be an easy guess. The 3rd generation (Latino's of born in the U.S., with both parents also born in the U.S.), will be better educated, make more money , will speak English as a primary language (78%), and will be more likely to marry with other races (57%).

The numbers are staggering. The conclusion is that the Latino population in the near future will be a much more powerful force than currently and cannot be ignored.