When the 2020 census results were released, they showed a boom in the number of people classified as multiracial in the United States since 2010. Two Princeton sociologists now say that jump was mostly an illusion.
The 276% increase largely happened because of a change in how people were classified by the U.S. Census Bureau rather than strong shifts in racial or ethnic identity or major growth, according to a paper published last month by Paul Starr and Christina Pao. The Census Bureau for the first time provided space on the census form for people to write-in their families' origins, which guided how the statistical agency categorized them.
