At the Population Association of America’s annual conference in San Francisco this week, papers on the recession’s impact on families, wealth, children, young adults, older Americans and other realms of life will be presented in at least 10 of the 200-plus sessions. Much of the research is preliminary, but it raises intriguing questions. One paper tries to assess whether the poor economy has affected divorce rates.
Young adults hit hard by the recession. A plurality of the public believes young adults, rather than middle-aged or older adults, are having the toughest time in today’s economy.
A sharp decline in fertility rates in the United States that started in 2008 is closely linked to the souring of the economy that began about the same time, according to a new analysis of multiple economic and demographic data sources.
The median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from 2009.
During the sluggish two-year recovery from the Great Recession, men have gained 768,000 jobs while women have lost 218,000 jobs. This new gender gap in employment trends represents a sharp turnabout from the recession itself, when men lost more than twice as many jobs as women.
There is wide interest by researchers and journalists in finding data from the Census Bureau and other sources that could illustrate the impacts of the Great Recession on American life.
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.
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.
For a narrow majority of Americans (55%), the Great Recession brought a mix of hardships, usually in combination: a spell of unemployment, missed mortgage or rent payments, shrinking paychecks and shattered household budgets, but for the other 45% of the country, the recession was largely free of such difficulties.
More than a third (36%) of Americans say the practice of “walking away” from a home mortgage is acceptable, at least under certain circumstances.
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