HOUSTON -- (April 20, 2011) -- Two influential books that charted population trends and significantly impacted public policy in Texas and other states for more than 15 years are set to get a 21st-century makeover, courtesy of a generous grant from the Meadows Foundation to Rice University's Hobby Center for the Study of Texas.
In the early 1990s, while serving as Texas' key state-oriented applied demographer, Rice sociologist Steve Murdock hit upon the idea of publishing a book to answer the questions most frequently posed to him by state lawmakers, corporate CEOs and others decision-makers. Using 1990 census data, Murdock, who is now director of the Hobby Center, published a book about state trends called "The Texas Challenge," and he published a second volume, "An America Challenged," that looked at the nation as a whole. Each book was used extensively by lawmakers.
The books opened with a detailed analysis of basic demographic data like birth and death rates, migration rates and population distributions by ethnicity, geography, level of education and socio-economic status. Using the best available data about patterns and rates of educational attainment, homeownership, labor, employment and the like, Murdock's team made hundreds of specific projections about population changes that would occur in Texas and the nation during the next 50 years.
"One of the key trends we found for Texas was that Hispanics and African-Americans, who today are still outnumbered by Anglos, would become the majority population in Texas in just a few decades," Murdock said. "The policy implications of this are significant, because Texas has traditionally done a poor job of educating minorities. 'The Texas Challenge' clearly showed that the future of Texas is tied to the future of its non-Anglo populations, and how well they do is how well Texas will do."
As the first official state demographer of Texas, Murdock joined with colleagues to update the Texas and national studies using data from the 2000 census, and Murdock said that the original and follow-up studies served as the basis for a number of agency and legislative initiatives, including the "Closing the Gaps" initiative of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Texas Grants program, which provides scholarships to financially needy students. Policy initiatives in California, Arizona and Georgia resulted from similar analyses in those states. National projections were used by key staff members in the U.S. Commerce and Education departments, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies.
The new funding from the Meadows Foundation will allow the Hobby Center to update each study with 2010 census data and create new long-term projections. Murdock said the updates are important because they will help the researchers determine whether earlier predictions were correct or need to be modified. The new data also will help researchers identify new, unexpected trends.
"The printed updates are important, but the Meadows Foundation support will also allow us to present the new information online in a format that can be available to more people and that can be continuously updated," said Murdock, Rice's Allyn R. and Gladys M. Cline Professor of Sociology. "This will no longer be a static book that's published once every decade. It will be a living, evolving resource and an even better tool for policymakers."
The Meadows Foundation is a private philanthropic institution established in 1948 by Algur H. and Virginia Meadows to benefit the people of Texas. The foundation's mission is to help the people and institutions of Texas improve the quality and circumstances of life for themselves and future generations.