The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture by Wilson Charles Reagan Pillsbury Richard

Author:Wilson, Charles Reagan, Pillsbury, Richard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2010-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Population

In 2000, 84,283,000 persons lived in the 11 former states of the Confederacy, as shown in Table 4. This number is a 19.1 percent gain since 1990, when 70,774,000 lived in the region, and a 94.0 percent gain since 1960, when the population was 43,436,000. At the time of the first census in 1790, the South’s population of 1,454,000 was 37.0 percent of the national total. That share declined steadily until reaching a low of 23.4 percent in 1930. It has since rebounded, rising to 27.1 percent in 1980 and 30.0 percent in 2000.

For more than a century after initial settlement, the South was less a destination than a point of origin for migrants. Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee each recorded over a million more out-migrants than in-migrants from 1870 to 1960. Only Florida (2.8 million) and Texas (1.3 million) consistently gained population from migration over this period. By the late 1960s the general pattern of net out-migration had begun to reverse. For the period from 1995 to 2000, all southern states except Louisiana had net gains from domestic migration, and the region as a whole recorded a net population gain of 1,807,000 as a result. Over the same five-year period, 926,000 international immigrants settled in the South, primarily in Florida (378,000) and Texas (299,000).

The 19.1 percent growth rate between 1990 and 2000 is higher than the nation’s growth rate of 13.1 percent. Increased migration to the South is primarily responsible for the region’s dramatic growth in recent decades, although a higher birthrate also has contributed. The South has long had a birthrate above the national rate; even when out-migration was high in the 1940s and 1950s, large numbers of births enabled the South to grow. Rates have declined since 1960, when the South recorded 25.0 births per 1,000 population and the nation recorded 23.7 births per 1,000 population. In 2000, the South recorded 15.0 births per 1,000 population, and the nation’s rate was 14.7. Of the ten states with the highest birthrates, three are in the South: Texas (second nationally with 17.8 births per 1,000 population); Georgia (fourth, 16.7); and Mississippi (tied for eighth, 15.8). Utah led all states with 21.9.

TABLE 4. Population of the South, by State, 1790–2000 (in thousands)

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