The U.S. Office of Management and Budget has approved modifications to the ethnic and racial self-identification questions used by federal agencies, including the U.S. Census Bureau. These changes involve merging the separate race and Hispanic ethnicity questions into a single combined question and adding a Middle Eastern and North African category.
Research published in Sociological Science, co-authored by University of Chicago scholar René D. Flores, reveals that this combined question reduces the percentage of Americans identifying as white or as "some other race." This catchall category is intended for those who do not fit into the listed options.
The research team, which includes UC Irvine sociologist Edward Telles and NORC research methodologist Ilana Ventura, found that Hispanics tend to decrease their identification in other categories when a Hispanic category is available in the combined format. This results in significant decreases in key minority populations like Afro-Latinos and indigenous Latinos.
"We need to think about the tools that we use to measure race and ethnicity more carefully because we're capturing subjectivities," Flores said, "and our instruments may be affecting those subjectivities."
Since 1980, government documents have included separate questions for Hispanic ethnicity and racial self-identification. The intention was for respondents to identify ethnically as Hispanic before choosing a race in a separate question; however, many Hispanics did not know how to respond.
"Most identify as white, but a growing number identified as [some other race]," said Flores. "They would just write their national origin."
Survey methodologists have found that changes in identity questions can alter responses significantly. Such changes affect all federal data on race and ethnicity collection, impacting political redistricting, congressional representation, resource allocation, academic research, and consumer marketing. As such, the government called for "additional research, testing, (and) stakeholder engagement" to assess these impacts.
Flores' team explored how these modifications affect Americans’ ethnoracial self-identification choices and what mechanisms drive these effects.
"If you look across the last few census waves," Flores noted, "more Americans are choosing [some other race], as opposed to any of the other available racial categories."
The study analyzed responses from 7,350 adult Americans assigned either existing separate or newly proposed combined questions. The findings show that when given the combined question listing Hispanic separately from categories like white or African American, some Hispanics previously identifying with these groups chose solely Hispanic identification.
Flores theorizes this effect could result from a tendency to select only one option in multiple-choice questions or stronger connections to national origin labels under "Hispanic."
"Anytime you introduce a big change...this raises concerns about comparability," Flores stated. Significant changes make data over time less comparable due to shifting identifications.
Flores emphasized understanding what's driving these impactful changes before fully implementing them: "Our research is really calling attention...we need to take a second...before we fully roll them out."