Reports on Race and Ethnicity

Reports are listed in reverse chronological order.

Media, Race and Obama’s First Year: A Study of African Americans in U.S. News Coverage
27 Jul 10 The fallout from the firing of Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod and the one-year anniversary of the controversial arrest of African American Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., have put race back in the news. How much coverage do African Americans receive? What role did race play in coverage of the Obama Administration? A new study examining media coverage of African Americans in the first year of the Obama presidency offers answers.

Minorities and the Recession-Era College Enrollment Boom
16 Jun 10 The recession-era boom in the size of freshman classes at four-year colleges, community colleges and trade schools has been driven largely by a sharp increase in minority student enrollment. The 6% increase in freshman enrollment from fall 2007 to fall 2008 was the largest in 40 years, and almost three-quarters of it came from minority freshman enrollment growth. Freshman enrollment of Hispanics at post-secondary institutions grew by 15%, of blacks by 8%, Asians by 6% and whites by 3%.”

Marrying Out: One-in-Seven New U.S. Marriages is Interracial or Interethnic
4 Jun 10 A record 14.6% of all new marriages in the U.S in 2008 were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity from one another, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of new census data. Of all newlyweds in 2008, 9% of whites, 16% of blacks, 26% of Hispanics and 31% of Asians married outside their race/ethnicity. Patterns also varied by region (intermarriage is most common in the West) and by gender.

Blacks Upbeat about Black Progress, Prospects: A Year After Obama's Election
12 Jan 10 Assessments about the state of black progress in America have improved more dramatically among blacks during the past two years than at any time in the past quarter century. Barack Obama’s election as the nation’s first black president appears to be the spur for this sharp rise in optimism , which also is reflected in the upbeat views of blacks on race relations, local community satisfaction and expectations for future black progress.

Black-White Conflict Isn’t Society's Largest : The Public Assesses Social Divisions
24 Sep 09 It may surprise anyone who has been following the charges of racism that have flared up during the debate over President Obama’s health care proposals, but the American public doesn’t see race as the source of the strongest social conflict in the country today. That dubious distinction belongs instead to conflicts between immigrants and the native born, and also to conflicts between rich people and poor people.

Americans Say They Like Diverse Communities; Election, Census Trends Suggest Otherwise
2 Dec 08 Despite pro-diversity attitudes expressed in a Pew survey, American communities appear to have grown more politically and economically homogenous in recent decades.

Inside the Middle Class: Bad Times Hit the Good Life
9 Apr 08 Americans feel stuck in their tracks. Most survey respondents say that in the past five years, they either haven’t moved forward in life (25%) or have fallen backward (31%) -- the most downbeat assessment in nearly half a century of polling by the Pew Research Center and the Gallup organization. But at the same time, two-thirds say they have a higher standard of living than their parents had.

U.S. Population Projections: 2005-2050
11 Feb 08 If current trends continue, immigrants arriving from 2005 to 2050 and their descendants will account for 82% of the population growth in the United States during this period, according to new projections from the Pew Research Center. The nation's racial and ethnic mix will change markedly by mid-century, the projections show, with the Hispanic share rising to 29%. Among non-Hispanic race groups, the Asian share will rise to 9%, the non-Hispanic black share will hold steady at 13% and the non-Hispanic white share will fall to 47%. The nation's elderly population (ages 65 and above) will more than double in size from 2005 to 2050 and by mid-century will make up 19% of the total population.

Do Blacks and Hispanics Get Along?: Yes, but Not Always, and Not about Everything
31 Jan 08 While blacks and Hispanics hold broadly favorable views of each other, Hispanics are less likely to say the two groups get along well. At the same time, African Americans are far more likely than Latinos to say blacks are frequently the victims of racial discrimination, according to a recent survey of racial and ethnic attitudes by the Pew Research Center.

Race, Ethnicity and Campaign ’08: People…Can We All Get Along?
17 Jan 08 Race, ethnicity and politics can sometimes make for a volatile mix, as the presidential field of 2008 has begun to discover. But in the world beyond politics, race relations in this country are on a pretty even keel. So say the real experts -- the people themselves.

Blacks See Growing Values Gap Between Poor and Middle Class: Optimism about Black Progress Declines
13 Nov 07 African Americans see a widening gulf between the values of middle class and poor blacks, and nearly four-in-ten say that because of the diversity within their community, blacks can no longer be thought of as a single race.

Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream
22 May 07 The first-ever, nationwide, random sample survey of Muslim Americans finds them to be largely assimilated, happy with their lives, and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: 22% of Americans Have a Relative in a Mixed-Race Marriage
14 Mar 06 One in five Americans (22%) now has a close relative married to someone of a different race.