State Hispanic Population Tops 2 Million, UF Study Finds

August 26, 1996

GAINESVILLE — Florida’s Hispanic population has broken the 2 million mark, and the youthful nature of the group bodes well for the state’s labor force, according to a University of Florida study that represents the first county-by-county breakdown of the state’s Hispanic population since the 1990 census.

“Because the Hispanic population is much younger than the rest of the state, this creates a strong supply of young people to fill jobs that otherwise might go unfilled,” said June Nogle, a demographer with UF’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research who helped produce the study. “That is good news for Florida, which, because of its large number of retirees, is traditionally thought to be fairly elderly compared to other states.”

Since younger people are at the prime age for creating families, they also fuel the economy by buying children’s clothing, homes, second vehicles and other items during their most productive purchasing years in the marketplace, Nogle said.

People 65 years and older represent only 11 percent of the Hispanic population compared to 20 percent of the non-Hispanic population. In 18 counties, fewer than one in 20 Hispanics are elderly.

As a whole, Hispanics in Florida numbered 2,014,681 in 1995, representing a 28 percent increase since 1990, when 1,574,149 lived in the state, the UF study showed.

They now account for 14 percent of the state’s total residents, compared to 12 percent in 1990.

“If past trends continue, Florida’s Hispanic population will grow well into the future at a rate faster than the state’s total population,” Nogle said. “This may result in demands for social services that are different than in the past, for example, bilingual education, especially with Hispanics being younger and more likely to have children in school than some other groups.”

The UF study did not examine language usage, but despite popular misconception, not all Hispanics speak Spanish, Nogle said. The vast majority are born in the United States and speak English as their first language, even though there are many immigrants who speak Spanish as their first language and many Hispanics born in this country who speak Spanish fluently along with English, she said.

“The Spanish-origin population is both racially and linguistically extremely diverse,” Nogle said. “There are white Hispanics, black Hispanics, and even a few people of Asian descent — primarily Filipinos — who consider themselves to be Hispanics. The Philippines had a strong Spanish colonial influence before the American presence.”

The UF study found that the 1,126,929 Hispanics in Dade County comprise more than one-half of Florida’s entire Hispanic population. More than half of the people who live in Dade County (56 percent) are Hispanic, the researchers found.

The next four largest Hispanic populations are in Broward (170,656); Hillsborough (131,305); Orange (101,522) and Palm Beach (95,282) counties.

The counties with the greatest share of Hispanics, besides Dade, are Hendry (27 percent); Hardee (24 percent); Osceola (17 percent) and De Soto (16 percent).

Thirty-nine of Florida’s 67 counties have fewer than 5,000 Hispanics. The five counties with less than 225 Hispanics (in alphabetical order) are: Baker, Dixie, Franklin, Liberty and Wakulla counties.

Growth of the state’s Hispanic population has been spurred by immigration from Latin America, migration from other parts of the United States and the natural increase caused by more births than deaths.

California has the largest Hispanic population in the United States, followed by Texas, New York and Florida, according to 1992 data from the census bureau, the most recent available national statistics.