June 2001

Diversity Is Not Coming to Central Missouri...
It Is Here 
Art Schneider, schneidera@missouri.edu

The first 2000 Census reports provide an interesting snapshot of Central Missouri. In the months to come we will find out much more, such as family composition, ages, and much more.  But what we do have shows that the compositional stew is looking very different.            

POPULATION CHANGES

Twelve of the 14 Central Missouri counties gained population between 1990 and 2000.  Missouri grew 9.34%, but Central Missouri grew 14.67%--50% more growth than the state! The two losing population were Chariton and Carroll.  Probably two of the fundamental reasons for their population decline is the lack of a local job base plus the distance from population centers that have jobs.  At this time we do not have the percentage of workers that must commute from their residential county.  Among the reasons that this is of interest is that commuters--depending upon the distance--may have less time to be with their families and less time and access to participate in their communities.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN CHANGES

Statewide, the African American population grew 14.81%. In Central Missouri it grew 33.46%. Five of the 14 counties lost African-American population: Carroll, Chariton, Howard, Moniteau and Saline.  Except for Saline, these are primarily rural counties. They may reflect an older population that is shrinking or youth leaving for the more populated counties. This growth change is fueled by several dynamics.  Certainly Cooper (up 30%), Moniteau (up 257%) , Cole (up 46%) and Audrain (up 31%) much--if not all-that increase is due to new and expanding prison populations. That are disproportionately African-American. This may in part explain Callaway's growth, but Callaway historically has had a larger African-American population.  People tend to marry people of the same race and for counties with few racial members, there is a pull to move elsewhere.

In Central Missouri, African-Americans make up 6.41% of the state's population--much lower than the state average of 11.25%. This reflects the movement of African-Americans to population centers.

HISPANIC CHANGES

Hispanic is an ethnic label that in itself masks diverse cultures from Spain to South America to Caribbean. Hispanics  can be of different races.  Statewide, the Hispanic population nearly doubled this past decade, increasing by 92.2%. In Central Missouri the growth was 168%! Every Central Missouri county--even those losing population--saw an increase in Hispanics.  The smallest was in Osage County with a growth of 37.5%. Moniteau grew 846%  (from 46 to 435), Pettis grew 469% (from 268 to 1527) and Saline followed closely at 494% 9208 to 1050)! 

Those counties with factories are attracting the largest numbers of Hispanics.  However, some of the rural counties--with somewhat small numbers (under 100)--may also be attracting a few Hispanics for agricultural labor.

It is likely that the five counties with the largest population (Boone, Cole, Moniteau, Pettis and Saline) were undercounted. At this time, Hispanics compose 1.71% of Central Missouri's population. Statewide the percentage is 2.12%.

Hopefully, as more detailed Census reports become available, we'll learn more about the Hispanic population, such as how many speak Spanish as a primary language, how many are native born, how long they have lived in the county, level of education and so on.  There is much anecdotal information that the literacy ranges are very wide Typically, people believe their own culture is superior to other cultures. Cultures have varying world views. This can create considerable misunderstanding. 

In the next issue of Thriving we'll look at some other changes.  Population changes from 1990 to 2000 for Missouri counties are available on the web at http://mcdc2.missouri.edu/webrpts/pl94trend/Missouri_Counties.pdf  This does require acrobat reader and is 67 pages, so it can take considerable time to download.

You can download population by county to Excel by going to http://mcdc.missouri.edu/census2000/pl94171.html and clicking  counties after No. 3.