Former Census director available to discuss deaths surpassing births among white Americans

Amy Hodges
713-348-6777
amy.hodges@rice.edu

 Former Census director available to discuss deaths surpassing births among white Americans

HOUSTON — (June 13, 2013) – The number of deaths surpassed births among non-Hispanic white Americans for the first time in at least a century, according to new figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. Former Census Director and Rice University demographer Steve Murdock is available to comment on this significant demographic change.

According to the Census Bureau, there were 1,974,794 million non-Hispanic white births in the year ending July 1, 2012, and 1,987,213 non-Hispanic white deaths.

“Non-Hispanic white populations are growing more slowly than minority populations in the United States and Texas,” Murdock said. “Due to below-replacement levels of fertility and low levels of immigration, this population is projected to decline in the United States and account for only 2 percent of Texas population growth between now and midcentury.”

Murdock previously served as director of the U.S. Bureau of the Census; he was nominated for the position by President George W. Bush and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2007 and serving until the change in administration in January 2009. At Rice he is the Allyn R. and Gladys M. Cline Professor of Sociology.

Prior to his appointment at Rice, he was the Lutcher Brown Distinguished Chair in Demography and Organization Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) and the director of the Institute for Demographic and Socioeconomic Research. Before UTSA, Murdock was a Regents Professor and head of the Department of Rural Sociology at Texas A&M University. Gov. Rick Perry appointed Murdock the first official state demographer of Texas. Murdock earned his Ph.D. in demography and sociology from the University of Kentucky and is the author or editor of 13 books and more than 150 articles and technical reports on the implications of current and future demographic and socio-economic change.

For more information or to schedule an interview with Murdock, contact Amy Hodges, senior media relations specialist at Rice, at 713-348-6777 or amy.hodges@rice.edu.

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Related materials:

Steve Murdock bio: http://sociology.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=130

U.S. Bureau of the Census: http://www.census.gov/

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