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Growing Racial Diversity in Rural America: Results from the 2020 Census [1]

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Date: 2022-05-17 10:07:20-04:00

Widespread Geographic Variation in Diversity

Racial-ethnic diversity and its social, economic, and political implications are experienced unevenly across nonmetropolitan America. High and growing diversity is clear in some parts of rural America, while other areas remain largely homogeneous (e.g., Whites in many rural parts of the Midwest or Hispanics in borderland counties in the Southwest). Figures 3 and 4 highlight racial diversity at the county level, measured by the probability that any two individuals, drawn at random from the county, will be from a different racial or ethnic group. Higher scores reflect a more diverse population because the chances that two individuals are of the same group diminish. In contrast, if all residents are from the same racial group, the diversity score will be 0.

For example, the population is quite diverse in much of the South and West, as well as in some nonmetropolitan counties adjacent to large metropolitan areas. Here the likelihood that two residents of the same county will be of a different race or Hispanic origin is high (and depicted in yellow and orange). In contrast, in much of New England, the Northern Great Lakes, Northern Appalachia, and the Northern Great Plains, the population is far more homogeneous (and White), as reflected in the blues and greens on the map.

The maps also underscore much greater diversity among children (Figure 4) than adults (Figure 3). In every region of the country, child diversity is greater than that of the adult population. This highlights a key finding from this research: rural diversity is greatest among children and least among adults. This finding for rural America is consistent with that for the nation as a whole. It demonstrates that although nonmetropolitan areas lost population and metropolitan areas grew over the last decade, both rural and urban America became more diverse. Nationally, the probability that two randomly selected children in a county will differ by race or ethnicity is 69 percent compared to 58 percent among those over 18. In fact, the child population is more diverse than the adult population in 47 of the 51 states (including DC), and in two of the remaining states the differences are minimal. It is also the case that the diversity of American society is not expressed evenly across all counties. Most U.S. counties, whether nonmetropolitan or metropolitan, and whether we consider children or adults, are less diverse than the nation as a whole. Yet as our maps suggest, there are diverse regions spread across rural America. This reflects the uneven residential concentration and segregation of different racial and ethnic groups in America.

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[1] Url: https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/growing-racial-diversity-in-rural-america#:~:text=In%20contrast%2C%20the%20number%20of,to%2020.2%20percent%20in%202010

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