Non-whites and Hispanics made up a majority of people in the United States under age 16 in 2019, according to figures released by the US Census Bureau - an expected demographic shift that will grow over the coming decades.
"We are browning from bottom up in our age structure," said William Frey, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution.
"This is going to be a diversified century for the United States, and it's beginning with this youngest generation."
At the same time, the number of non-Hispanic whites in the US has declined in the past decade as deaths surpassed births in this ageing demographic, according to the Census Bureau population estimates.
In 2019, a little under 40 per cent of the total US population was either non-white or Hispanic.
Non-Hispanic whites are expected to be a minority of the US population in about 25 years.
A natural decrease from the number of deaths exceeding births, plus a slowdown in immigration to the US, contributed to the population drop since 2010 for non-Hispanic whites, whose median age of 43.7 last year was by far the highest of any demographic group.
If these numbers hold for the 2020 census being conducted at the moment, it will be the first time since the first US census in 1790 that there has been a national decline of whites, Frey said.
"It's aging. Of course, we didn't have a lot of immigration, that has gone down," Mr Frey said. "White fertility has gone down."
Over the past decade, Asians had the biggest growth rate of any demographic group, increasing by almost 30 per cent.
High angle view of parents with daughter shopping online on laptop at dining room Source: Getty
Almost two-thirds of that growth was driven by international migration.
The Hispanic population grew by 20 per cent since 2010, with almost three-quarters of that growth coming from a natural increase that comes when more people are born than die.
The black population grew by almost 12 per cent over the decade and the white population increased by 4.3 per cent.
