Over the past three years, minority residents have made up nearly half of the people moving into or being born in Johnson County.
White residents are still the predominant racial group in the county at more than 90 percent. But minority populations are increasing in Johnson County, and the number of white residents has decreased, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Population growth in Indiana has slowed since the economic downturn, but the growth in new Hoosiers is being driven by minorities, a state demographer said. The mostly white, baby boom generation in Indiana is aging, while younger minority groups, including African-Americans and Hispanics, are moving into the state, seeking jobs and starting new families.
Minorities made up about 40 percent of the 3,500 new residents in the county since 2010, according to the new Census numbers.
Hispanic residents made up the county’s largest minority population, with more than 4,700 residents in 2012, or about 3 percent of the total population, which was up about 10 percent from 2010, according to the numbers.
The number of Asian residents is growing fastest at the national level and also increasing locally as several international businesses in the county attract new residents from overseas, Franklin Mayor Joe McGuiness said. The number of Asian residents grew about 11 percent since 2010.
Marion County remains the most diverse county in central Indiana, with whites totaling about 59 percent of residents. Johnson County ranks third-most-diverse among seven central Indiana counties, with an 8.5 percent minority population.
That percentage is less than half of the state average of 18.5 percent.
Over the past three years, more people are moving out of the state than into it, so population growth in Indiana has been mostly driven by births, Matt Kinghorn, a demographer with the Indiana Business Research Center said.
The median age of the white population is about 40, compared to about 30 for African-American and Asian residents and 25 for Hispanics, Kinghorn said. Those numbers show that minority populations are younger and may be having more children than white residents.
Minority populations also tend to be more mobile, since they may not have two or three generations of family tied to a particular community, Kinghorn said. Growth in the Indianapolis area is heavily connected to job opportunities, and workers are moving to central Indiana for jobs and then starting families, he said.
That growth tends to be from younger families, he said.
Nationally, the Asian population is growing at the fastest rate among all groups, while Hispanics continue to be the largest minority group in the nation, according to census data.
Asian residents in the county make up about 2.1 percent of the population, a rate higher than the state average of about 1.6 percent. Johnson County’s numbers are boosted by several international businesses, which are bringing executives and staff from overseas.
Unlike other minority groups, growth in the Asian population nationally is being fueled more by immigration than births, Kinghorn said.
With regions like China rapidly expanding, foreign businesses are locating in the U.S., and students are coming to America to study at universities.
Eight Japanese companies are located in Franklin, for example, and company representatives from Japan live and work in the county, McGuinness said. A company may cycle a new president in every few years, but other foreign office staff typically remains unchanged, he said.
Greenwood has had a rise in the number of Sikhs from India. The group formed a temple in the city and has an annual parade, Greenwood assistant police chief Matt Fillenwarth said.
The county remains predominantly white, but in his 10 years with the police department Fillenwarth has needed to find translators who speak Spanish, German, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and Hindi, he said.
“I never necessarily thought of Greenwood as the melting pot. If you would have told me 10 years I was going to be in a Sikh parade, I would have been like, ‘What?’” he said.
Minority statistics can be a helpful tool for governments to keep an eye on how their population or workforce is changing, Kinghorn said.
For example, if an area has a rapidly growing Hispanic population, a community may need to invest in English-learning programs for students or adults in the workforce, he said.
