Census Bureau Rethinks The Best Way To Measure RacePosted in Articles, Census/Demographics, Media Archive, United States on 2012-12-29 02:57Z by Steven |
Census Bureau Rethinks The Best Way To Measure Race
National Public Radio
2012-12-27
Corey Dade, National Correspondent, Digital News
Possible revisions to how the decennial census asks questions about race and ethnicity have raised concerns among some groups that any changes could reduce their population count and thus weaken their electoral clout.
The Census Bureau is considering numerous changes to the 2020 survey in an effort to improve the responses of minorities and more accurately classify Latino, Asian, Middle Eastern and multiracial populations.
Potential options include eliminating the “Hispanic origin” question and combining it with the race question, new queries for people of Middle Eastern or North African heritage, and spaces for Asians to list their country of descent. One likely outcome could be an end to the use of “Negro.”
The stakes surrounding population counts are high. Race data collected in the census are used for many purposes, including enforcement of civil rights laws and monitoring of racial disparities in education, health and other areas…
…Broadly, the nation’s demographic shifts underscore the fact that many people, particularly Latinos and immigrants, don’t identify with the American concept of race…
Read the entire article here.