Overview

The California Demographic Futures project is an ongoing effort by the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development to bring a population-centered perspective to bear on California's evolving future. Ongoing changes in the population are so extensive that planning and policy making require much more specific information than is otherwise available or generally utilized.  The goals of this project are (1) to provide this information in a timely fashion and (2) to educate planners and decision-makers about the implications for the demand for infrastructure, products and services. The following overview is taken from the first report to be issued from this project.

California is in the midst of a 15-million person growth surge, with a population rising from 29.5 million in 1990 to 45.0 million in 2020.  The magnitude of growth is daunting. The anticipated 15.5 million increase is equivalent to adding the population of the entire state of Florida—fourth largest in the nation—within California’s limits in just 30 years. The projected average increase of five million additional residents per decade is not a sharp departure from the past, as it continues a pace of total growth that has become familiar since 1960. Nonetheless, planners and policy makers face severe challenges in meeting the demands of this population growth.

What is most different about recent growth trends is the rapid increase in the immigrant population. Back in 1970, only 8.6 percent of the state’s population was foreign born. The foreign-born share rose sharply to 15.1 percent in 1980 and 21.8 percent in 1990, as the absolute numbers of foreign-born residents doubled and nearly doubled again.  Continuing this upward trend to 2000 and beyond would lead the state to ever larger shares of foreign-born residents.

Knowledge about the growth in foreign-born population is especially important in California.  This report documents many areas where the foreign-born are dramatically different in their impacts and demands for goods, services, and infrastructure than native-born residents. Topics addressed include poverty, homeownership, smoking behavior and access to health care, education, public transit use, and English speaking ability.  Equally important is information about how many residents are newly arrived or long-resident immigrants. In many cases the differences between newer and longer residents are greater than between native and all foreign-born or between races.

No public agency in the U.S. provides population projections that include nativity and duration of residence. In much of the country, immigrants are only a small presence and it is possible to make sound plans without information about the origin of the population, but in California, as other states with large concentrations of immigrants, we cannot plan for the future without better knowledge of the foreign-born population.

The California Demographic Futures database introduced by this report seeks to fill that pressing need.  Projections for the state and selected counties are prepared for 5-year intervals from 1980 to 2020. They include the age, sex, and race-ethnic dimensions found in most professionally prepared population projections. In addition, the projections interleave a nativity dimension (native-born or foreign-born) and, for the foreign-born, further detail the decade of arrival in the US for each immigrant cohort. To increase their usability in California, our projections are controlled to age and race totals produced by the Demographic Research Unit in the California Department of Finance. Those projections are the official figures produced by the State of California for purposes of state and local planning. 

The innovative contribution of the California Demographic Futures database is its addition of immigrant status to the age-sex-race-ethnic dimensions.  Previously, the share in each detailed group that is foreign-born was implicit but not separately tracked. These projections indicate not only the number of newcomers expected to arrive in future years, but, more importantly, include the number of existing immigrant residents who will continue to reside in future years. As described in this report, the future trajectories of those long-resident immigrants will have great impact on the state in the years ahead. 

Applications of the new data are many fold. Already underway are studies of tobacco use and prevention, housing needs, labor force changes, and educational attainments. A unique advantage of the demographic perspective is its insights about forthcoming changes. Policy makers require that foresight in order to begin preparations that require a decade or more of advance planning. Some of these population impacts have been surprising, causing great turmoil for all Californians. For example, the demographic consequences for infrastructure-roads, water, and electricity-have been reported in an op/ed article on the Immigration-Infrastructure Connection (PDF file).

Suggested Citation

Dowell Myers and John Pitkin. 2001. Demographic Futures for California. Population Dynamics Group, School of Policy, Planning, and Development. University of Southern California. Los Angeles, California.

School of Policy, Planning, and Development
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California 90089-0626
Attn: Prof. Dowell Myers

Updated on Feb.19, 2005
http://www.usc.edu/schools/sppd/futures

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