Official statistics on the number of Ukrainians in the United States: 2000 Census results (09/01/02)

Official statistics on the number of Ukrainians in the United States: 2000 Census results

by Oleh Wolowyna

Last year I presented estimates on the number of Ukrainians in the United States. These numbers were based on the Census 2000 Supplementary Survey, and I cautioned readers that these were not yet the definite numbers.

Recently 2000 census data on ancestry became available, and there are some differences from the previous numbers. These data should be considered the official numbers and are likely to be the most accurate estimates available on the number of Ukrainians living in the U.S. in the year 2000. Here we present only totals by state.

More detailed data, by first or second ancestry, use of Ukrainian language in the home, as well as characteristics like age, sex, place of birth, etc., will become available next year.

It should be noted that these numbers are the result of the question "What is this person's ancestry?" One had the option of stating one or two ancestries (for persons with parents of different ancestries). This means that the meaning of "Ukrainians" is based on self-reporting; each person had complete freedom to decide on how to answer this question. Also this question was asked, on the average, in one of every six households; that is, the data is based on a sample of about 16.7 percent of the total population and has been adjusted to 100 percent.

The total number of Ukrainians in the United States in 2000 was estimated at 893,055 by the census, compared to the 862,416 estimated by the Census 2000 Supplementary Survey.

As the number of Ukrainians was 740,803 in 1990, there was an increase of 152,252 (or 20.6 percent) in the last decade. As the natural growth (number of births minus number of deaths) of Ukrainians in the United States is quite small, most of this growth was due to net migration (number of in- minus out-migrants). If we add the fact that there is a well-documented strong assimilation process, i.e., as time goes by more persons of Ukrainian ancestry decide not state "Ukrainian" as their ancestry, this growth is quite remarkable. On the other hand, it is quite likely that some persons who did not report "Ukrainian" as their ancestry in 1990 were influenced by the fact of Ukraine's independence and decided to declare themselves "Ukrainian" in the 2000 Census.

Table 1 presents the number of Ukrainians by state, and compares 2000 data with 1990 census figures. One interesting result is that New York, which occupied the second place in 1990, became the No. 1 state in 2000, with almost 150,000 Ukrainians, or 16.7 percent of all Ukrainians in the U.S., while Pennsylvania moved to second place. New York gained 27,500 persons between 1990 and 2000, while Pennsylvania lost about 7,500. Also, California and New Jersey switched ranks, with California moving from fourth to third place.

With a few minor changes in ranking, the eight states with the largest numbers of Ukrainians have remained the same: New York, Pennsylvania, California, New Jersey, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Florida. As shown in the last column of Table 1, the first five states host more than half of all Ukrainians in the United States. With the exception of Pennsylvania and New Jersey (which had practically no growth), the other six states experienced significant increases in their Ukrainian population in the last 10 years.

In spite of the heavy concentration of Ukrainians in these eight states, some of the states with relatively small numbers of Ukrainians in 1990 have made large gains in the last 10 years. For example, Washington state almost tripled its number of Ukrainians and moved from 14th to ninth place; Oregon more than doubled its Ukrainian population and moved from 20th to 15th place; North Carolina also more than doubled its Ukrainian population and moved from 23rd to 19th place.

As will be seen below, all the states with relatively large increases of Ukrainians between 1990 and 2000 are states that until recently had very few Ukrainians. This indicates a new migration trend among Ukrainians in the U.S., and probably settlements of new immigrants from Ukraine are a significant factor in this trend. (We will have to wait until next year for the more detailed census data, in order to be able to analyze this hypothesis).

For the sake of completeness, we present in Table 2 the number of Ukrainians in the other states. For the first 25 states, the number of Ukrainians varies between 148,700 in New York to 3,982 in Nevada. The states in Table 2 have Ukrainian populations that vary between 3,815 in North Dakota to 572 in Wyoming. On the average, these states have about 2,000 persons of Ukrainian ancestry.

Table 3 shows the relative increase (or decrease) of the 10 fastest and the 10 slowest growth states. Washington state experienced almost 180 percent growth in its Ukrainian population between 1990 and 2000, or about 18 percent per year. States like Oregon, South Dakota, Utah and Idaho had more than 100 percent growth. The other high-growth states were: North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Nebraska and Vermont. All these are "non-traditional" states in terms of Ukrainian population, and illustrate the continuing geographical dispersion process of Ukrainians throughout the United States. The dispersion trend observed during 1980-1990 has splintered even more in the last decade, with Ukrainians moving to states with practically no Ukrainian population.

The state with the largest loss of Ukrainians between 1990 and 2002 was Pennsylvania, with -5.8 percent followed by Rhode Island with -5.6 percent. Connecticut lost about 1 percent, while New Jersey maintained its Ukrainian population practically stable. The other six states in Panel B of Table 3 all had positive growth, from a maximum of 10.6 percent for Oklahoma to a minimum of 2.9 percent for Hawaii. Thus, almost all states increased their Ukrainian population during the last decade, and some by a large margin.

The census is the only reliable source of data on Ukrainians for the whole country. Next year more detailed information will be available with variables like: first and second ancestry, age, sex, marital status, place of birth, year of immigration (for immigrants), citizenship status, education, school attendance and type of school, occupation, income of individuals and families, relationship to the head of the household, etc.

There is also detailed information about housing characteristics: rent/own status, numbers of rooms and bedrooms, year of the structure, mortgage payment, rent, value of the house, etc. This information can be analyzed at the country, state and city levels.

The Ukrainian community has made little use of this data for assessing the situation of Ukrainians in the United States, their strengths and weaknesses. Comparisons with 1990 and 1980 census data allow us to study processes like language assimilation, intermarriage, social mobility, migration, etc. A comparison of 1990 and 2000 data can also provide a good picture of the level, composition and settlement of recent migrants from Ukraine.

In this era of information and technology, organizations and social groups that do not take advantage of available information for their decision-making put themselves at a great disadvantage.

Oleh Wolowyna is president of Informed Decisions Inc. based in Chapel Hill, N.C. A demographer, he has written previously for The Ukrainian Weekly about the U.S. Census and Ukrainians in the United States.

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