Declines in the youth population over all have occurred twice before in the last century. First in the 1930s, when the Depression gripped the country, dragging down the birth rate, and then in the 1970s and 1980s, as the baby boomers aged out of childhood and women delayed marriage and went to work.

Demographers sifting through new population counts released on Thursday by the Census Bureau say the data bring a pattern into sharper focus: Young Americans are far less white than older generations, a shift that demographers say creates a culture gap with far-reaching political and social consequences.

Mississippi, Virginia, New Jersey and Louisiana all had declines in their populations of white residents ages 18 and under, according to the bureau’s first detailed report on the 2010 Census.

That drove declines in the overall white population for the decade in three of the four states. Only Virginia, whose northern suburbs have been growing fast, had a rise.

Growth in the number of white youths slowed sharply in the 1990s, up by just 1 percent
in the decade, as the number of white women of childbearing age fell, according to Kenneth M. Johnson, a demographer at the University of New Hampshire
.
More recently, it has dipped into a decline. The number of whites under the age of 20 fell by 6 percent between 2000 and 2008, Mr. Johnson said, citing countrywide census estimates…

The growing divide between a diverse young population and an aging white population raises some potentially tricky policy questions. Will older whites be willing to allocate money to educate a younger generation that looks less like their own children than ever before?

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