Wikipedia:Whiteshift

Whiteshift, or white racial shift, is a theory which observes white demographic decline, and the demographic phenomenon of white majorities gradually declining to become a minority group in various Western jurisdictions; predicting the related social phenomenon of socially accepting more mixed race people as white. The term "whiteshift" was coined predominantly by Birkbeck College professor Eric Kaufmann, considered a specialist both in political demography and demography, and his 2018 book Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities. These phenomena had previously been described as white decline or racial shift and have been discussed, analyzed, and researched by academics from various demographic cultural and political perspectives.

Definition
White racial shift, abbreviated frequently to whiteshift (sometimes white shift or white-shift) is a theory which observes white demographic decline and predicts the emergence of mixed-raced majorities and a shifting racial classification of whiteness. The thesis utilizes white-identified population demography, recorded and studied by various national census bureaus, governmental organizations, and in scholarly or journalistic analyses, usually in Western countries. The concept can be referred to pan-regionally, continentally (e.g. North America), or within a district or other local level.

Background
In 2014, Thomas B. Edsall, discussing a Public Religion Research Institute survey designed "to assess anxieties concerning the changing racial makeup of the country", analyzed research which had concluded that "making this racial shift salient could bring more moderate White Americans into the Republican Party, as well as increase turnout among White Americans who already consider themselves Republicans.

Historian Michael Burleigh has drawn attention to an aspect of whiteshift, which outlines how mixed-race people and public figures, such as politicians Iain Duncan Smith (of part Japanese ancestry) in the UK, Dutch politician Geert Wilders and US Senator Ted Cruz, will increasingly become integrated into white majorities. In 2018, demographer Dowell Myers wrote that, under an exclusive definition of whiteness, such as being solely of European descent, "whites are indeed in numerical decline" in the US. Also referencing congressman Ted Cruz, in relation to shifting classification of white, as well as Meghan Markle (who has African American heritage), Myers analyzed the trend toward recognizing an inclusive, multiracial definition for white majorities when factoring in the demographic phenomenon.

In 2019, academic Ghassan Hage proposed how the fear-based distortion and political capitalization of the demographic phenomenon, provided the ongoing danger of fueling extremism and propaganda, such as that involved in the Christchurch mosque shootings. A Gothenburg-Post-analysis of the decline, referencing journalist Ivar Arpi's commentary of what the publication described as a demographic threat in Sweden, identified Arpi's description and modelling as making use of whiteshift theory. Political analyst Michael Barone has written of his "cautious optimism" for the concept to occur in a societally stable and positive model.

The concept denotes as much importance to the converging of racial identities into the dominant culture, as the data-led component of the future numerical minority-status of white people. The author of 2018's Whiteshift has been reported to have stressed the importance, in his view, of exploring the concept in general discourse, to facilitate both conservatives and cosmopolitans experiencing the social phenomenon of whiteshift as a positive development.

Simon Fraser University professor, Paul Delany, wrote in 2019 that more extreme societal polarization could provide a challenge to the political acceptance of gradual whiteshift. In 2020, Spiked magazine referenced increasing use of whiteshift, as a concept and explanatory driving force, to describe political upheavals and electoral upsets in the West.

Racial shift condition
In 2014, professors Jennifer Richeson and Maureen Craig published research, which among various conclusions, outlined white racial shift condition. Their study showed how white people in the US, who were informed of the gradual reduction of the country's white majority, were more likely to demonstrate higher racial intergroup hostility due to the perception of a demographic threat. The study, which was described by Pacific Standard as demonstrating how "the coming racial shift evokes higher levels of both explicit and implicit racism on the part of white Americans", has been analyzed by sociologist Mary C. Waters, who concurred that demographic projections, and their portrayal in media, are proportionately linked to concern among some white Americans and subsequent increase in racial tensions.

Other studies
In a 2016 study, psychologist Brenda Major conducted research which showed that white Americans, who strongly identified with their racial group, and were exposed to demographic change of reduced number of whites, or provided "the racial shift reminder", were more likely to vote for Donald Trump during the Republican Party presidential primaries than any other candidate.

Published in Social Forces in 2018, two studies conducted by sociologists Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, showed how telling white Americans that the United States was becoming demographically majority non-white, increased their criticism of welfare.

In 2019, separating the concept from Kaufmann's book, the Centre for European Policy Studies analyzed the prediction of future mixed-race majorities in the West, describing it as rooted in evidence for the occurrence of whiteshift, rather than a "futuristic end of identity" or pan-racial society. In 2020, a Population and Development Review journal piece explored the conflict in the conception of whiteshift as both a demographic phenomenon and cultural identity transition. Citing US Census Bureau statistics, the use of precision in demography was demonstrated to be somewhat compromised by the "blurring of ethnic boundaries", a factor acknowledged in the theory of whiteshift.