USC

Comment

Comment by Marc Cooper on February 4, 2009 at 9:44pm

Class notes (attached) from January 29 as prepared by Marie Cunningham. Guest speaker: Prof Morley Winograd, a leading expert on the demographic impact of the current Millenium Generation.usc.news21.notes.jan.29.doc

Comment by Claire Webb on January 29, 2009 at 12:13am

News 21 Guest Speaker Roberto Suro
1/22/09

Goals for his visit: To give a 30,000-feet-high overview of some of the demographic tensions in the Southwest region. Demographics are an indicator of a larger story.

Demographics and Climate Change:
Suro wanted to invoke the words of Gene Roberts to imagine demographic stories. “There’s some stories that break and other stories that ooze, and you have to cover the oozers,” he said. This means demographic stories happen gradually— much like stories of climate change, which is a very gradual cumulative process.
Change in history is seen when you add up individual acts, rather than looking at them on their own. Look at population change as both cause and effect—these are two different ways of unpacking it.

Factors of Demographics:
They are actually fairly simple stories, what happens in these changes is actually the product of very small variables. Such as births, deaths and movement—or fertility, mortality and migration. These processes are quantifiable and fairly simple, but looking back years later you can see the change.

The Challenge:
How you describe change a very short time, and finding ways to frame stories that don’t have the “today” aspect to stick in.
• Solution: contextualize these events and try and understand these kinds of gradual change—in context of political and economic change.
• Climate change is easier—no one blames the sun, no obvious human agency.

Pitfalls:
• In demographic change there exists an excessive protagonism about the people who migrate
• You would greatly advance the cause not to tell overdone stories about migrants (ex. Jose and Maria stories)
• The person who moves is the principal actor in the migration change. They determine the arc in the narrative.
• But don’t diminish the importance of individuals involved.

It’s About the Place:
• The key is understanding how demographic change explains larger stories in our society: the wormhole that gets you into other things
• What does it tell you about the place—not the people—if there is a change in population
• Places are the main characters and the demographic change is the driving force of the story—it takes you to a story of that place
• Use demographic change as a sign, not so much an action—it is there for you to interpret a broader story.


Immigration from Mexico to U.S.:
• The flows of workers from Mexico to U.S. correlates with employment rates—the migration is both a leading and a lagging indicator of what’s going on in the U.S.
• When the numbers started dropping off in early 2006, the message was: if Mexicans have stopped coming to the U.S. something is happening.
• The change in flows is a change as much as 40-50 percent of economic flows.
• Someone created demand for that kind of work, and created political and economic conditions where that demand is met by that worker.

The Southwest:
• A region with a whole variety of demographic changes that can signify all men are different things
• very rapid population growth: Las Vegas and Phoenix are prime examples of expansion, as are Nevada and Arizona as a whole.
• Demographic change throughout the Southwest began with initial decline of manufacturing industry.
• Shift of people out of industrial Midwest and Northeast in the 1970s. People were fleeing the decline of manufacturing sector.
• Consequently other forms of economic activity increased
- Ex. Southern California’s boom in aerospace in 1970s-1990s
-Ports in Southern California
-Post NAFTA increase of trade with Mexico
-SW prior to 1960 had small levels of international trade—big trading quarter was Northeast—now it is completely changed, especially in the past 10-15 years.
• Phoenix—very diverse blend of economic activity there, said all they do is grow, so what do you do now?
• Vegas had its own trajectories with gaming and hospitality agencies. And outsourcing of a lot of customer service activities. Used to be a big hub of credit card customer service.

California—Ahead of the Curve:
• All the trends happened in CA first—it’s the mature version of what’s happening in the rest of the Southwest.
• CA its ahead by about 20-40 years
• Now producing substantial net migration (calculated by census as natural increase by births minus deaths)—it’s minus 3 percent now per year

Housing Bubbles:
• Two big housing bubbles have had enormous impact in the region.
• Growth fed into a self-feeding. A very robust housing sect feeds into other sectors.
• Then comes a secondary migration of low-end workers to accommodate high end sectors.
• The result is boom and bust
• It becomes a magnet for people to get a much bigger house for less money.
-Ex. out migration of CA of middle class whites, into semi retirement phases
-looking for a quality of life change: more house for less money
• speeding up search for quality of life change creates the situation we have now.

Shift: Secondary Migration Wave
• The first level of economic change (above), produces one demographic change.
• Hispanic migration often accompanies this economic change
• Service sector: huge influx of Mexicans when people were looking for rich financial types. The secondary services are related to those forms of economic activity. The support work service (secondary work force) follows the needs of the primary force (aka financial yuppies)
• CA had big migration in 1960s and 70s, they have been here for 30 years.
- Now these people have been here for 30 plus years. Then you have primary form of Latino household: men, women and children.
- Creation of Nuclear families
- people that naturally flow into home buying.
• In the 3-4 years before collapse of housing industry, you had substantial housing sales to recently arrived Hispanic immigrants. \\

Shift: Retirees
• The other big move is people who are retirees or with second homes.
-People employed increase marginally but retirees increase a lot.
- It creates a strange economic model
• Factoid: Arizona, population: 71 percent non-Hispanic white, 21 percent Latino.
Births: 41 percent white, 46 percent Hispanic.
• Resulting shift: An old white pop not having kids, and the Hispanic population is.
- Here is where you see combo of fertility and migration.
- The character of a place will change in the blink of an eye.
-the adjustments will be staggering—ex. More than 50 percent of school children are non white, and 70 percent of tax payers are old white people (Nevada is not far off)
-Fertility rate of non-Hispanic whites has fallen below sustaining levels
• Key demographic subject is dependency ratios: percents that are working and paying for those who aren’t working and need govt. services

Balance of Dependency:
• Most dependent on big govt. when young and old. Young people need education and old people need healthcare.
• There has to be a balance: enough poeple in the middle to pay for folks at either ends.
- the number of elders needing support and number of workers is becoming out of wack
• when you get rapid demographic change, you can drastically change dependency ratios • When you have large scale migration, the working migrants keep the balance in place.