Policy Decisions May Jeopardize Future

March 3, 2006

California voters are so demographically different from the state's current and future population that the policy decisions they make today may jeopardize the state's future.

So says a study by USC professor Dowell Myers, which he presented March 30 in Los Angeles at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America (PAA).

“California's voters are not representative of the current population,” said Myers, professor in the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development. “The non-Hispanic white population has fallen to minority status — 45 percent of the state's population and only 32 percent of the school children — but that ‘minority' holds a 70 percent majority at the voting booth.”

These white voters have considerably different views than the population majority, Myers said. “They are generally more pessimistic about the future, more opposed to population growth and more opposed to immigration,” he explained. “Their older members are also much less willing to pay higher taxes to support more education and better public services.”

The older people get, the more they vote, said Myers, who added that black and white residents have been here the longest, are the oldest and the most established. “Plus many of the Asian and Latino residents are not native born and automatic citizens. It takes time for them to naturalize and to adopt a cultural of full civic participation, something we need to accelerate.”

Long-established residents often view immigrants more as a burden than a benefit, Myers said. Not yet seeing their interests tied to the rising generation, whites often vote against the interests of the incoming majority who are the future.

Myers' study is based upon the Federal Current Population Survey's November voting supplements, census data and USC's California Demographic Futures forecast.

Covering 1970 to 2030, California Demographic Futures shows that the state's foreign stock (parents and children) is growing from a small percentage to roughly 50 percent of the population, and the ethnic mix is passing from mostly white to majority “minority” and then majority Latino.

Near the middle of the transition, in 1990 through 2010, there is substantial political friction, Myers said.

“It almost seems like some white voters have given up on the future, because they are not interested in making investments that are needed,” Myers said. “I think they haven't realized yet how important the rising new majority will be to filling jobs and paying taxes when the giant baby boom generation retires. That begins in just five years.”

Whites will dominate elections for the next 25 years, Myers projects, and no group will hold a majority until 2060 or later when Latinos will begin to account for 50 percent of the voters. “Thus, one can only hope that the white voters will exercise stewardship of the state that is wise and forward oriented,” Myers said.