American Diversity: A Demographic Challenge for the Twenty-first Century (review)

This is an excellent book that addresses race and ethnic issues in the U.S. from a demographic perspective. Through the discussion of various demographic processes and life cycle events, the editors want to demonstrate how demographic studies contribute to the understanding of American racial and ethnic diversity. They clearly have accomplished their goal.

The book begins with an introduction by Nancy Denton and Stewart Tolnay. They nicely explain the themes of the book and discuss how each chapter is related to the themes. The next two chapters of the book caution readers about the basic conceptual and measurement issues of studying race and ethnicity. The chapter by Mary Waters argues that most demographic research on race and ethnicity treat race and ethnicity as fixed categories. However, racial and ethnic identity are affected by social factors and can fluctuate. Compounded by the challenges of classifying children of interracial couples, the study of race and ethnicity can be complicated. The discussion by Charles Hirschman in the following chapter further supports this assertion. Hirschman points out that population projection, especially by race and ethnicity, has to rely on good data and valid definition of ethnic categories. However, the changing measurement of Hispanic and Asian populations over the years, the presence of children of intermarriage, and the fluctuation of ethnic identity all contribute to the difficulty in projecting racial and ethnic populations.

The next three chapters highlight how basic demographic processes can contribute to an understanding of population diversity. Douglas Massey in his chapter shows how any new immigration wave interacts with the social context to shape race and ethnic relations. He suggests that recent immigrants with unique cultural and linguistic backgrounds cluster geographically and face a growing segmented labor market with diverse economic returns. Subsequently, ethnic communities are more likely to be developed. Gray Swicegood and Philip Morgan studied the different fertility rates of different racial and ethnic groups. They found that blacks and Hispanics have higher fertility rates, which, they argue, will have considerable impact on the racial and ethnic composition of society in the long run. Richard Rogers in his chapter explores the mortality differences among groups. Data from 1985 to 1987 show that Asians have the lowest infant mortality rate and highest life expectancy, while the opposite is true for blacks. Rogers also identifies specific causes of mortality among groups and notes the importance of socioeconomic effects.

The third part of the book is devoted to the study of various life cycle events in racial and ethnic groups. Michael White and Eileen Shy focus on the residential segregation patterns of various groups. Although survey data show that racial tolerance has increased over time, blacks still experience high levels of residential segregation, and specifically the highest among all racial and ethnic groups in their segregation from whites. The authors cite results from housing audit studies that unfavorable treatment in housing search is far higher for blacks and Latinos than for the majority group. In their chapter, based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, Joseph Hotz and Marta Tienda report considerable differences among racial and ethnic groups, blacks especially, in getting jobs after leaving school. They also show that these experiences have significant effects on later labor market experiences. Gillian Stevens and Michael K. Tyler looked at the intermarriage patterns of racial and ethnic groups. They found that intermarriage between racial groups is not common, and they expect the trend to remain low. Although they found the intermarriage of blacks with others has increased over the decades, the rate still remains very low. Finally, Cynthia Taueber studied the elderly population. Using projection, Taueber shows that the percentage of non-Hispanic whites among the population over age 65 has gradually declined. In other words, the elderly population is becoming more racially diverse.

The...