(upbeat music) - Good evening, and welcome to "Horizonte," a show that takes a look at current issues through a Hispanic lens.

I'm your host, Catherine Anaya.

Tonight, we talk about how US Latinas are not only growing in economic power by leaps and bounds, they are, "Giving life to the economy."

That's according to a new report from California Lutheran University, UCLA Health Center for the study of Latino Health and Culture, and Bank of America.

Now, some of the reports highlights include this, "The Latina GDP was $1.3 trillion in 2021, that's up from 663 billion in 2010.

That's a 51.1% growth rate in that time period, higher than Latino men and the overall population.

Latinos are also getting an education at a booming rate up 103% from 2010 to 2021.

And real income for Hispanic women in the US, jumped 46% from 2010 to 2021."

Joining us to talk more about this report is Dr. David Hayes-Bautista, a professor of medicine and director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at the School of Medicine, UCLA.

Thank you so much for joining us, doctor.

- It's my pleasure to be here with you.

- It is great to see you.

So this is the inaugural US Latina GDP report.

What prompted this particular report?

- Well, as we've been doing the GDPs since 2015, and I have been doing the groundwork since 2007, I noticed some really interesting demographic trends that were occurring having to do, particularly with Latinas and the change in their human capital they've been acquiring.

And it seemed to me that this would translate into a rather differential GDP growth pattern, compared to other groups.

So we ran the numbers, and that is exactly what we found out that major demographic changes in human capital in Latinas and it's unique to Latinas, is gonna be driving Latina GDP growth or probably over the next 20 to 30 years.

- It's incredible.

Can you put this into perspective for us, just how remarkable these numbers are?

When we're talking about the economic contributions that Latinos make in this country, you talked about, you know, it's going to be continuing for a number of years, and we're talking about multi-generations, right?

- Absolutely.

Actually we need to, let me just frame how wonderful this is, how big it is.

When we released our national GDP report about a month and a half ago, during COVID, in spite of that in the face of COVID, the Latino GDP grew from 2.7 trillion in 2019 to 3.7 trillion by 2022, bigger than India, and is now the world's number five economy, bigger than India.

And during that period of the top 10 GDPs, the Latino GDP had the fastest growth rate, the number one growth rate, faster even than China, bigger than India, faster than China.

Then we look at Latinas within that, and of course, we had to pull out then the women and the men.

And almost every single metric that's used in estimating the GDP, the Latinas compared to the Latinos are stronger, faster, bigger, swifter, in almost every single metric.

The labor force is growing more rapidly, the income is growing more rapidly, and even their portion of the GDP is growing more rapidly.

I just can't put enough superlatives out there.

Latinos are just doing a great job giving life.

(David speaks in foreign language) - It is truly remarkable.

Let's talk about some of those areas.

The educational aspect of this report is also astounding.

The number of US Latinas with a bachelor degree or higher education is skyrocketing.

What do you attribute to that?

- Women are gaining, much more educational attainment than men.

When I was young in the 1970s, when you looked at a medical school, say here at UCLA, it was rare to find a female student.

There'd be maybe four or five out of a class of 100.

Now, ever since 2005, over half the first year medical students in the United States are women.

So Latinas feed into that, but then there are something else that's going on, which has to do with the demographic composition.

There was a wave of immigration from about 1970 to about the year 2000, and it was about the ninth wave of immigration from Latin America to the US.

These immigrant women generally came with fairly low levels of education, and their goal was not to continue their education here, but to start forming families.

But they had children.

Their daughters gained far more educational attainment, than the immigrant mothers.

And the way the demographics are, US-born Latinos are about 95%, well, of the young Latinos, about 95% are US-born, whereas of their immigrant moms, about two-thirds of the moms are immigrants.

So as a 65-year-old Latina, largely immigrant, ages outta the labor force, there are two young Latinas entering, just starting.

And they have much higher educational attainment, than the immigrant mom did.

In fact, over 91% of Latinas graduate from high school.

More than two-thirds go on to college, whereas their mothers had a lot less.

So you're getting twice as many Latinos going into the labor force as leaving their far more highly educated.

- [Catherine] Mm-hmm.

- We see a different demographic dynamic in saying non-Latinos and non-Hispanic white.

For every non-Hispanic white mom that leaves the labor force, less than one enter.

So that actually, the non-Hispanic white labor force is, slowly, slowly shrinking, but Latinas are giving dynamic growth, almost a two for one growth.

So you add these all together, the secular trends generally in women's education, the Latina spectacular increase in one generation over their moms, and two of them entering for everyone that leaves, is just spectacular, spectacular Latina GDP growth.

- So it's obviously very fascinating to a lot of people to hear these numbers.

And this report says that, "The Latina GDP is giving life to the US economy."

Can you put that into perspective for our audience?

- [David] Certainly.

- And how it is impacting the economy as a whole?

- Certainly.

The Latino GDP, both genders together, is the major growth spot of the US economy, period.

Although Latinos are 19% of the country's population, we accounted for 41% of the growth of the GDP.

So that's wonderful.

And in fact, Latinos are the best hope for this country's economy, to maintain its economic preeminence throughout the 21st century.

That'll be very much a gift of Latinos to the US.

But within that, the Latinas are the burning hot center of growth of the Latino GDP.

(David speaks in foreign language) Giving life.

A lot of people seem to think our best economic days are behind us.

No, they're ahead of us, thanks to Latinas, and particular, Latinos in general.

- So doctor, these are incredible numbers.

What is it that you would like for people to take away from this report when they hear the details of the report and the numbers and just the remarkable information coming from it?

- I would like people to understand that if we want the overall US GDP to grow, that the best thing we can do is invest in Latino, and particularly, Latina activities to push the GDP to a higher level.

Latinos are the last best hope to maintain US economic preeminence throughout the 21st century.

And it's right here growing in front of us.

And as Latino GDP grows, and particularly, as the Latina spark that growth, everybody benefits from overall GDP growth.

- Everybody benefits, I love it.

Thank you, Doctor, for joining us.

We appreciate it so much.

- Okay, my pleasure.

- And that's our show for tonight for "Horizonte" and Arizona PBS, I'm Catherine Anaya.

Thanks for joining us.

Have a great night.

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