By Suzanne Gamboa -
NBC News
COVID-19, declining international immigration, and lower fertility rates, even among Latina women, helped fuel what the Census Bureau says is a historic slowdown in national population growth.
The Census Bureau recently reported that, in the year from July 1, 2020 to July 1, 2021, the country only added 392,665 people, which translates into a growth rate of 0.1 percent.
According to the bureau, that's the lowest rate since the nation's founding.
More than 810,000 people have died in the United States since the pandemic began in early 2020, according to a data analysis by NBC News.
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"The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and a combination of various factors, has resulted in a historically slow rate of growth," Census Bureau demographer Kristie Wilder said in a statement.
Since April 1, 2020, which was census day, the country's population has increased from 331,449,281 to 331,893,745, an increase of 444,464, or 0.13 percent.
Population decline can have economic impacts by reducing the number of available workers and affecting national production.
Latinos have been key to sustaining the nation's population growth as the baby boom generation has been aging.
Latinos accounted for more than half of the country's growth in the last decade, reaching 62.1 million in April 2020 and increasing to 18.7 percent of the US population.
In the last two decades, the growth of the Latino population is due to births rather than migration.
The reverse was true in the 1980s and 1990s, according to the Pew Research Center.
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Fewer births, more deaths
For years, Latinas have had more children than women of all other racial and ethnic groups in the United States.
However, as with women of other racial and ethnic groups, that number has been declining, said Rogelio Saenz, a professor of demography at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Hispanic women have also experienced some of the largest declines in fertility rates.
In 2019, the fertility rate for Latinas was 1.93 children per woman, and by 2020, it was just under 1.87.
That's a significant drop in the fertility rate of 2.1 for Latinas, Saenz said.
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The slowdown in migration from Mexico has been one of the main reasons for the decline.
Higher education levels, marriage deferral and the pandemic are also influencing factors, Saenz said.
Hispanics account for about 17.2 percent of COVID-19 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But the CDC data also shows that in all age groups, Hispanics have recorded more deaths than other sectors of the US population in the same age group.
That is particularly true in the 35-44 age group.
In that sector, Hispanics make up 20% of the population, but represent 35% of deaths from COVID-19.
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The numbers are similar in the next youngest group, ages 25 to 34.
Sáenz noted that the number of foreign-born Latinas living in the United States, and of Latinas of childbearing age, ages 15 to 44, has decreased as Mexican migration has slowed.
But more Hispanic women (61%) are in that group of childbearing age, Saenz said, compared to 41% among non-Hispanic white women.
"So even if you see a drop in fertility among Latinas, the fact that there are a lot of them of childbearing age means that that population will continue to increase at a remarkable rate due to their youth," Saenz said.
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The Census Bureau also noted that Puerto Rico's population decreased by 17,954 people, or less 0.5 percent, from July 1, 2020 to July 1, 2021.
In general, the drop is due to a natural decrease because more deaths were registered than births, and because fewer people emigrated to Puerto Rico than those who left.
The office said that in the year from July 1, 2020 to July 1, 2021, net international migration, the difference in the number of people entering the country and those leaving, exceeded the natural increase, which is the number of excess births compared to deaths.
A total of 244,622 people were added to the U.S. population through net migration in that period, while 148,043 were added through a natural increase, the bureau said.