Department of Finance
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Sacramento, CA 95814

E-3 California County Race / Ethnic Population Estimates and Components of Change by Year, July 1, 2000–2007

April 2009

OFFICIAL STATE ESTIMATES

Acknowledgments

Melanie Martindale produced the race / ethnic report text and tables. Mary Heim reviewed the estimates and provided methodological consultation. Linda Gage produced the total population estimates upon which these are based. The vital statistics were provided by the Department of Public Health, Office of Health Information and Research (www.cdph.ca.gov).

Suggested Citation

State of California, Department of Finance, California County Race / Ethnic Population Estimates and Components of Change by Year, July 1, 2000–2007. Sacramento, California, April 2009.

• E-3 California County Race / Ethnic Population Estimates and Components of Change by Year, July 1, 2000–2007 (.xls, <5 MB)

Contents

This report presents provisional state and county race / ethnic estimates for July 1, 2000 through July 1, 2007, and components of population change by year between fiscal years 2000–2007. The estimates are classified into seven race / ethnic groups. These are Hispanics (of any race) and non-Hispanic Whites, Blacks, American Indians, Asians, Multirace persons and Pacific Islanders. The definitions of these groups are found in federal Office of Management & Budget Directive 15 (1997 rev).

Highlights

State

From 2000 to 2007, California gained over 3.6 million people, increasing over 10 percent during the period and adding over one half million a year. However, population change for the state’s seven race / ethnic groups diverged noticeably from this pattern, with four growing at a much faster clip, two increasing at a more modest rate, but with one actually experiencing marked decline. Hispanic, Asian and Multirace populations increased their shares of the state's population (by 4.4 percent, 1.0 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively), while the shares of Whites and Blacks declined (down 5.85 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively). The shares of the state's other two race / ethnic groups increased very slightly (American Indians, up 0.02 percent and Pacific Islanders, up 0.04 percent) over the seven-year period. Although still the largest race / ethnic group, Whites were, by 2007, 41.3 percent of the population, down from 47.2 percent in 2000 and the only race / ethnic group that actually declined numerically over the period (regardless of share), dropping by over one half million persons. In the same period, Hispanics added over 2.8 million people, growing to almost 37 percent of the state total. Asians grew from 11 percent to 12 percent of this total, increasing by about 789,000, while Blacks, although adding over 108,000 persons, dropped to a 6.2- percent share of the state total from 6.5 percent in 2000. Multirace persons held the next largest share, 2.6 percent, growing to almost 980,000 from under 650,000 in 2000. The two smallest groups, American Indians and Pacific Islanders, held 0.56 percent and 0.36 percent shares of the state population in 2007, adding about 28,000 and 26,000 people, respectively, over the period. These rates of growth and decline across the race / ethnic groups resulted from very different patterns in the components of change (births, deaths and migration).

The changes for the White population in California in the 2000–2007 period have been unprecedented in the state’s population history. Whites experienced natural decrease of population (that is, an excess of deaths over births) in all seven years and experienced net outmigration in six of the seven years. Net migration was positive only in 2000, with a modest gain of about 86,000 that year. Net outmigration not only began the following year but increased every succeeding year through 2006, when it was over 124,000. It dropped somewhat in 2007 but was still substantial at a net loss of over 117,000 people. Somewhat similarly, the Black population is still growing but only modestly (it increased about 5 percent over the seven-year period). Its natural increase of population has declined or slowed year to year, and its net migration has dropped consistently, becoming modest amounts of net outmigration in 2006 and 2007.

American Indians are the only group besides Whites to have experienced natural decrease of population every year in the period albeit the decreases averaged somewhat less than 250 per year. And these losses were offset by substantial net inmigration ranging from about 3,600 to almost 5,000 people a year. As a consequence, the population grew by over 28,000 over the period, a solid 15 percent increase for this small group now numbering almost 213,000 statewide.

In contrast, the Multirace population has grown a remarkable 52 percent over the period, experiencing notable and growing natural increase of population every year, and also showing net inmigration every year, although the net migration has moderated somewhat the last couple of years. Because the Multirace category was only adopted in 2000, it is difficult to place any definitive interpretation of these data until the Multirace data base has accumulated over a longer period of time.

The remaining three race / ethnic groups—Asians, Pacific Islanders and Hispanics — have grown by 21 percent to about 26 percent since 2000. The Asian growth rate (21 percent) signals an addition of about 790,000 people, with almost 30 percent coming from natural increase and over 70 percent coming from net migration in each year. Pacific Islanders, the smallest group at about 136,000 people with a period growth rate of about 24 percent, also has been increasing mostly through net migration (about three fourths of its increase over the period). Finally, Hispanics' strong growth (an addition of 2.8 million people and an increase of about 26 percent) results primarily from large and growing natural increase of population (excess of births over deaths). Today only about 40 percent of its growth comes from net migration, which has been declining for the past five years, while about 60 percent comes from natural increase. This Hispanic component-based change pattern is the opposite of that for Asians and Pacific Islanders.

Counties

The relative proportions of the race / ethnic groups vary widely across the Counties, with some of the groups heavily represented in certain county corridors or clusters. In this period, the widely varying distribution of White population loss in particular is especially noteworthy in this regard.

White Population Decline in the Counties

Of the state’s 58 counties, 28 (48 percent) experienced one or more years between 2000 and 2007 when their White population numerically declined. Nine of these (about 32 percent) in the Bay Area or Coast had White population decline in all seven years. Twelve other of these counties experienced White population decline in six of seven years. Of the 28 counties with White population decline, about 46 percent (13) also had natural decrease of the White population in six or all seven years of the period. An additional seventeen counties without numerical White population decrease still had natural decrease of White population in all seven years of the period, with or without lesser numbers of year(s) of net outmigration. In fact, only three counties—El Dorado, Placer, and Yuba—had both natural increase and net immigration of Whites in all the seven years.

Race / Ethnic Group Representation in the Counties

Those with the highest percentages of Whites (90 percent or more) are Sierra and Nevada (both 90 percent), with Plumas following at 89 percent and Trinity at 88 percent. Nine other counties, most in the rather sparsely settled northern and eastern part of the state, are at least 81 percent White. In contrast, Imperial County at the state's southeastern tip had the smallest percent White, 15.5 percent, in 2007. Although the state itself is less than 50 percent White, this is true for only about 40 percent (23) of the state's 58 counties. These racially and ethnically diverse counties also are some of the largest counties, heavily weighting the state's race / ethnic composition.

The highest concentration of Blacks is found in Solano and Alameda Counties, which are 15.1 and 14.5 percent Black, respectively. Several of the larger counties' Black percentages fall in the 5-9 percent range, but the majority of California counties' populations have very small Black percentages. Slightly over a third of counties (34.5 percent, 20 counties), mostly in the northern and eastern part of the state, are less than one percent Black.

Asians were most substantially represented in San Francisco—over 30 percent of the county's population in 2007 was in this race / ethnic group. Three nearby counties—Santa Clara, San Mateo and Alameda—were roughly one quarter Asian, while six additional counties in the same west central part of the state were 10 to 15 percent Asian. In the southern part of the state, only Los Angeles (13.3 percent) and Orange (16.8 percent) Counties had notable percentages of Asians.

As the second largest race / ethnic group in the state, Hispanics are well represented in most counties. The smallest percent Hispanic, 3.5 percent, is found in Trinity County. Only 11 other counties, mostly in the eastern and northern parts of the state, are 5-10 percent Hispanic. The group is already 78 percent of the population in Imperial County; is the majority race / ethnic group in six other counties (San Benito, Tulare, Monterey, Merced, Colusa and Madera) and is a larger percent of the population than Whites (ranging from 45 to 49 percent ) in yet another six (Fresno, Kern, Kings, Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Bernardino).

Methodology

A crude vital statistics rates method was used to develop the July series race / ethnic estimates. Calendar year births (by race of child); deaths by race / ethnicity; Census 2000 benchmarks; and independent July series total population estimates controls for the state and counties are the variables used in the method.

Step 1

Because of the small numbers of vital events in many counties, the first step in the method is to regress births and deaths over time to produce series of smoothed births and deaths for model input. This analysis was completed at the state and county levels for the seven race / ethnic groups.

Step 2

Two population estimates are developed for each of the state's race / ethnic groups, one using calendar births, the other, calendar deaths. Each of the crude rates for each race / ethnic group is calculated for the benchmark year and then divided into the vital statistic for the current year to obtain a current population estimate for the race / ethnic group. The resulting two estimates (a "birth"-based estimate and a "death"-based estimate) for each race / ethnic group are each controlled to the independent state total population July estimate from the E-2 series. These two controlled values are then averaged to produce the final estimate for each race / ethnic group. This method is repeated successively for each year in the race / ethnic estimates series.

Step 3

This process is repeated at the county level for each race / ethnic group, with the state's values created in Step 2 serving as the controls for the counties. Each county's "birth"-based and "death"-based estimates for each race / ethnic group are averaged after being controlled to the state value.

Step 4

The last county-level step of this method is to recontrol all the county estimates by race / ethnicity from Step 3 to the total county population estimates in the E-2 series (there may be some small differences in E-2 and E-3 totals due to independent rounding).

Step 5

The county-level race / ethnic estimates are summed to obtain the state-level estimates. This crude vital rates method is not used to produce an independent set of race / ethnic estimates at the state level.

Data Considerations

Sources: The benchmark (or starting point) for these estimates is the Census Bureau's Modified Race (MR) file from Census 2000. The vital statistics are provided by the California Department of Public Health. Data in consistent race / ethnic categories are available for all years in the series. Note that race / ethnicity is generally self determined, and some individuals might change their race / ethnic self identification over time.

Accuracy: Because the definitions of race / ethnic categories and how people interpret them for self-identification purposes have changed over time, it is currently not possible to evaluate the accuracy of the method used to produce the estimates in this report. At present, by law the US Office of Management & Budget (OMB) defines race and ethnic groups for purposes of statistical classification by federal agencies, including the US Census Bureau. The OMB last updated these Directive 15 definitions in 1997 for use in Census 2000 and subsequent years. If alternate data sources, consistent with these 2000 Census race / ethnic definitions, become available, the method used in this report will be examined for possible enhancement.

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