Maryland Sees Growth in Racial Diversity, but Challenges Persist

When one considers the most racially and ethnically diverse states in the U.S., states such as California, Hawaii and Texas likely come to mind. The data backs this up: All three rank in the top 10 for the U.S. Census Bureau's diversity metric, according to 2020 census data released in August.

But there's another state that might surprise you: Maryland. Not only does the state rank No. 4 overall for diversity, but it saw the biggest increase – a bump of nearly seven percentage points from 2010 to 2020 – among the top 10, according to data provided by the bureau. It's also now the most diverse state on the East Coast.

The data from the decennial census shows that Maryland is a very ethnically and racially diverse state – and has become much more so in the past decade. But analysts and demographers say that issues there persist when it comes to inclusivity and equality, and warn against assigning too much weight to data whose methodology has been adjusted over time.

"This is still a very highly segregated state," says Janelle Wong, a professor of American Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Maryland. "I think that's worth us all paying attention to."

The bureau's Diversity Index measures the probability – between 0 and 1, translated as a percentage – that two people chosen randomly will be from different races and ethnicities. Numbers close to 100% mean that nearly everyone in a population has different racial and ethnic characteristics.

The nation as a whole became much more diverse between 2010 and 2020, rising from about 55% to 61%, according to visualized census data. Maryland experienced similarly large growth in that timespan, going from about 60% to over 67%.

Maryland's big diversity increase was driven by growth among its smaller racial or ethnic groups, according to Eric Jensen, the bureau's senior technical expert for demographic analysis. For example, Maryland's multiracial, non-Hispanic population doubled (2.2% to 4.4%) from 2010 to 2020. Its Asian alone, non-Hispanic population also saw a moderate increase, from 5.5% to 6.8%.

Also crucial to the changing makeup of the state's diversity, the white population in Maryland shrunk below 50% in 2020 after it accounted for nearly 55% of the state's population in 2010. The Black or African American population – the second-largest group in the state by a wide margin – stayed about the same (29.1%) between 2010 and 2020.

The state's Hispanic or Latino population – the third-largest share – rose nearly four percentage points in a decade's span, from 8.2% to 11.8%.

Reasons for Diversity Growth

Why the state is becoming so much more mixed racially and ethnically due to any true demographic shifts is difficult to parse, but experts have some ideas. One "big driver" is the "gentrification that's been going on for the past two decades," Wong says.

"We have seen, I think, people moving to the suburbs of D.C., and suburbs all around the country are becoming more diverse," she adds. "And that was just really compounded by lack of affordable housing over the last decade in D.C."

There is more affordable housing available in Maryland and the state also has "opportunities for people to work," according to Robert McCord, the secretary of the Maryland Department of Planning. The numbers bear this out: The median home value in Maryland is just over $300,000, compared to more than $600,000 in Washington, D.C., according to recent data from Business Insider and Zillow.

Beyond opportunity, the state's already-strong presence of Asian Americans and Hispanics or Latinos is key to its growing diversity, adds Wong, noting the concept of chain migration.

"Once these immigrant communities have been established, we see that kind of growth because people want to move to communities where they have a sense of connection and familiarity," she says. "Migration, especially among Asian Americans, but also other immigrant groups, is also contributing to this diversity."

McCord and Wong both bring up the demographic changes in Howard County, which is about 30 miles north of Washington, D.C. The county, which saw its Diversity Index – the second-highest in the state – jump 10 percentage points from 2010 to 2020, previously had the Black or African American population as its second-largest group.

That spot is now occupied by Asian Americans, who increased their population share from about 14% in 2010 to nearly 20% in 2020.

Segregation Remains Across the State

Experts say that despite Maryland's clearly strong diversity, the state – like so many others – still has issues when it comes to equality.

Wong notes that there are problems with both school segregation – especially for Black students – and residential segregation in Maryland. She adds that counties with high Diversity Index scores aren't necessarily racially integrated.

Baltimore, the state's largest city, has a pattern of racial segregation – with Black residents living in mostly the western and eastern parts of the city – that dates back to more than a century ago, coupled with uneven investment, according to a 2019 project by the Urban Institute, a think tank focused on economic and social policy research.

A 2015 data brief from the Maryland Equity Project at the University of Maryland's College of Education found that as public school enrollment became more diverse in the state, schools became more segregated. Districts in places such as Baltimore and Prince George's County had the most segregated schools, while districts in more than a dozen other counties experienced moderate segregation, according to the report.

Maryland's Montgomery County, just north of Washington, provides a good example of the dichotomy the state is facing.

The county has the highest Diversity Index percentage in Maryland, and the No. 16-ranked score in the entire U.S. But, like other counties, its strong diversity does not equal great opportunity for communities of color.

Several 2019 reports from the county council's Office of Legislative Oversight found large gaps between Montgomery County's white population and people of color in areas such as health and housing, according to Jayne Park, executive director of Impact Silver Spring, an organization that tackles the root causes of racial and economic disparities in the county. In fact, the office's Racial Equity Profile from July 2019 found that across the policy areas studied, the county's "white residents experienced the best outcomes for the vast majority of measures considered."

State-level data also illustrates gaps. For example, Maryland's white population had a poverty rate of 6.4% in 2019, compared to 12.9% for the Black or African American population, according to American Community Survey data from the Census Bureau.

"While having this level of diversity is great, when you look at the data, it's pretty clear that there are significant disparities when it comes to equity," Park says.

Methodology Changes

Some demographers caution that the Census Bureau's diversity statistics – especially any shifts between 2010 and 2020 – should be taken with a grain of salt because of methodology tweaks. When the 2020 census redistricting data was released, officials noted that the bureau "improved" the design of its questions used to collect information about the races and ethnicities of the U.S. population and also updated its "data processing and coding procedures for the 2020 census."

People were also able to respond to the census survey online for the first time, and therefore, people "had a computer to type instead of writing in that tiny little space" and might have given longer answers related to race and ethnicity than they would have otherwise, says Carolyn Liebler, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota. She points to the increase in multiracial population nationally, which "could be because people change their minds, or because the Census Bureau just coded it differently." This is one reason why Liebler would "caution against" comparing Diversity Index scores to 2010.

Jesse Rhodes, a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst, agrees.

"I think it's always important that whenever there are changes in the measurement strategy between time periods or different ways of examining data, that you really have to be extraordinarily cautious in making any hard arguments about change, because you really are comparing apples and oranges," he says.

While he says it's "quite likely, if not certain," that the country has become more diverse over the last decade, he adds that "when it comes down to much more detailed claims about the magnitude of changes, you have to be really careful."

A bureau official defended the adjustments over email.

"We are confident that the changes we are seeing from 2010 to 2020 in the diversity measures, which rely on mutually exclusive Hispanic origin by race groups, likely reflect actual demographic changes in the population over the past 10 years as well as improvements to the question designs, data processing and coding," the official wrote.

A Path Forward

While the Diversity Index data might not tell the whole story for Maryland or really any state, it does provide some lessons, according to Liebler.

"I think it's telling us where we have some opportunity to interact with people who are not in the same group as ourselves," she says. "But then we actually have to take steps to get beyond the hyper segregation that is in most of our lives. Especially non-Hispanic white people have very segregated lives."

Wong adds that overcoming the problem of segregation will require a team effort in Maryland.

"The growing diversity in this state," she says, "means that this is an issue that we all need to take on."