All Things Census
10.18.10
The 2010 census is underway in Russia, and experts expect that the results will show the population is smaller than it was during the last count, in 2002. That census counted 145 million people; estimates for the current total are about 140 million to 142 million. The decline has been attributed to a combination of diminished migration, ill health and low birth rates (although government statistics indicate recent upticks in fertility). The census nearly was canceled because of cost considerations.
One challenge for the census is to have a correct count of the estimated 20% of the population who are ethnic minorities. The federal statistics service offers 1,840 possible categories for residents to choose from. To persuade Russians to cooperate with census-takers, the country’s top leaders posed for photographs with enumerators, and President Dmitry Medvedev recounted his own experiences as a census-taker.
10.15.10
Using 2008 American Community Survey data, the Pew Hispanic Center has constructed demographic and socioeconomic profiles of eligible Hispanic voters in 27 states with the largest numbers of them. The state fact sheets include breakdowns by age, gender, educational attainment, marital status, parenthood status, household income and homeownership rate, as well as the shares that are citizens by birth or via naturalization. Comparisons are provided based on all voters in those states, and nationwide.
In addition, the Pew Hispanic Center has published a new interactive feature, called Mapping the Latino Electorate, that includes eligible voter statistics for the 50 states and District of Columbia, as well as Hispanic and overall population and eligible voter statistics for the 435 congressional districts.
Eligible voters are defined as U.S. citizens, ages 18 and older.
10.13.10
Among married couples with their own children under 18 at home, the share with a working wife and unemployed husband went up in 41 states in 2009, compared with the year before, according to a new Census Bureau analysis of data from the American Community Survey. Nationally, the share of married couples with minor children where the wife was employed and the husband was not rose to 3.4% in 2009, compared with 1.8% in 2008.
The Census Bureau analysis links the rise to the Great Recession’s harsher impact on male-dominated industries, such as manufacturing, compared with female-dominated sectors such as health care. It also notes that the number of women older than 25 with advanced degrees (which can buffer against unemployment) rose from 2008 to 2009, while the number of men with advanced degrees did not change. A Pew Research Center report earlier this year reached some similar conclusions about marriage and gender; it found a rising share of U.S.-born women ages 30-44 are more educated and earn more income than their husbands.
The new Census Bureau analysis is among a dozen new ACS briefs released this week that use data from the 2009 survey. The briefs explore themes that include commuting, labor force participation, housing, use of public assistance, immigration, and science and engineering degrees.
10.08.10
Among Europeans ages 25-34, nearly one-in-three men and one-in-five women lived with at least one of their parents in 2008, according to a recent report from the European Commission. The highest shares were in Bulgaria for men (61%) and in Slovakia for women (42%).
These figures are higher than they are in the United States, where there has been a recent rise in multi-generational family households, as documented in a recent Pew Research Center report. According to the report, which is based on census data, 22% of men and 18% of women ages 25-34 lived in a multi-generational family household in 2008; in the vast majority of cases, they lived with one or both of their parents. In October 2009, a Pew Research Center survey found that 13% of parents with grown children said one of their adult sons or daughters had moved back home in the previous year.
10.07.10
Throughout the 20th century, college-educated Americans were less likely to be married by age 30 than Americans without a college degree. That pattern has now reversed, according to a new report by the Pew Social & Demographic Trends project of the Pew Research Center.
The report is based on data from the 1950 to 2000 Decennial Censuses and the Census Bureau’s 2008 American Community Survey.
10.04.10
Iraq was supposed to conduct a census in 2007, but it has been put off repeatedly. The latest census date was supposed to be Oct. 24, but the government announced the count has been postponed until December because of tensions over control of land in the northern region. The last census, in 1987, tallied 16 million people, but the current total is believed to be 30 million, by some accounts.
09.29.10
The Census Bureau just released its 2009 American Community Survey statistics, and included some additional analysis to address public interest in using the data to document the impact of the economic downturn. The agency released seven data briefs that used estimates from the ACS to address topics including poverty, household income, health insurance coverage and use of food stamps or other nutrition benefits.
Much of the media coverage of the 2009 survey estimates focused on the theme of economic distress, including this Washington Post story about child poverty, this New York Times account of the recession’s impact on marriage rates, and this USA Today article about the recession “affecting every aspect of American life.”
09.01.10
The average annual inflow of unauthorized immigrants to the United States was nearly two-thirds smaller in the March 2007 to March 2009 period than it had been from March 2000 to March 2005, according to a report released today by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. The estimates are based mainly on data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey.
The U.S. unauthorized immigrant population declined by 8%–or about a million people–from 2007 to 2009, according to the new estimates. There were an estimated 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in March 2009, compared with 12 million in March 2007.
According to the report, the decline has been especially notable in states along the nation’s Southeast coast and in its Mountain West. By country of origin, the most marked decline has been in unauthorized immigrants from Latin American nations other than Mexico.
The new set of national estimates comes on the heels of a report released last month by the Pew Hispanic Center that provided estimates about the children of unauthorized immigrants.
08.17.10
The Wall Street Journal’s Numbers Guy columnist, Carl Bialik, recently wrote a print column and blog posting about the limited amount of information available on the size of religious populations in the U.S. The Census Bureau is barred from asking about religious affiliation, but dozens of other countries do so in their own headcounts.
The BBC has an article stating that officials have given approval to including a question about caste on India’s 2011 census, a topic that was last asked about in 1931. For more background, see this posting on All Things Census, which includes links to earlier news stories about this controversial issue.
The Census Bureau’s recent announcement that it will return $1.6 billion to the U.S. Treasury in 2010 Census operational savings was widely covered, with stories by The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today and NPR, among others. Here is the transcript of the news conference with Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Census Bureau Director Robert M. Groves that includes an update on the status of the 2010 Census budget and operations.
08.04.10
New York legislators have passed a bill that would count prisoners at their home addresses, not those where they are incarcerated, for purposes of redrawing state and local legislative districts using data from the 2010 Census next year. The provision was included in a budget bill sent to Gov. David A. Paterson for his signature.
The Census Bureau announced in February that it would release detailed numbers earlier than usual so that states would be able to use 2010 Census data to exclude prisoners from being counted at their prison locations for redistricting purposes. Some state officials and legislators contend that the current practice of counting prisoners where they are incarcerated gives disproportionate power to communities with large prisons, which are often located in sparsely populated rural areas.
Maryland enacted similar legislation earlier this year. Delaware legislators have passed a similar bill, and sent it to the state’s governor, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, a group that advocates for counting prisoners in their home communities.
