Random Samplings

More Than a Century of Tracking our Children

Written by: Rose Kreider, US Census Bureau

Much of what we can observe today about who children live with is a function of how the American family has changed over time.

Statistics from the Census Bureau are invaluable for helping us understand how children’s living arrangements have evolved. Of particular interest is what we can observe today compared with what we saw in the late 19th century, giving us a timeline of 100-plus years.

From generation to generation, we see small but important changes. In 1880, the proportion of children who lived without a parent was 6 percent. By 1970, that had dropped to just 3 percent. Notably, those who lived with their mother, with no father present, went up over the same period, from 8 percent to 11 percent.

Perhaps of even greater interest, and certainly more current to our own reference point, is the shift we see that took place between 1970 and 1990. In that span of 20 years, the proportion of children living with their mother but without their father doubled from 11 percent to 22 percent.

This time span also corresponds to sharp increases in births to unmarried women, from 11 percent of all births in 1970 to 28 percent in 1990, according to birth data from the National Center for Health Statistics. Additionally, the percent of children living with two parents declined from 85 percent in 1970 to 73 percent in 1990.

Since 1990, children’s living arrangements have changed at much slower rates. The proportion of children living with two parents declined less between 1991 and 2009 (4 percentage points) than it had between 1970 and 1990 (12 percentage points).

And children living with their mother without their father present increased 3 percentage points from 1991 to 2009, compared with an 11 percentage point increase between 1970 and 1990.

These figures come from the report Living Arrangements of Children: 2009, which examines the diversity of situations in which children live in the United States, describing extended family households with relatives and nonrelatives.

Slow or fast, the family situation in which children live continues to change. Having historical data allows us to venture outside of our current vantage point and view the accumulation of change over time. It gives us the context to better understand who we are by showing us where we came from.

Read the press release.

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Celebrating the 4th of July in Numbers

On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress, setting the 13 colonies on the road to freedom as a sovereign nation. In July 1776, the estimated number of people living in the newly independent nation was 2.5 million. (Source: Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970). Since then, the population of the United States has grown to over 311 million (estimated population on this July Fourth).

Many US residents celebrate the Fourth of July with parades, fireworks and backyard barbecues with friends and relatives. In fact, 81 million Americans reported taking part in a barbecue last year (Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2011).

Here are some tasty stats to help get you in the mood:

• Florida led the nation in watermelon production last year with 750 million pounds. Other leading producers of this popular fruit included California, Georgia and Texas (with more than 600 million pounds each).

• Are potato salad and potato chips on your Fourth of July barbecue menu? Approximately half of the nation's spuds were produced in Idaho or Washington state in 2010.

• Putting lettuce on that burger? More than ¾ of the nation's head lettuce production in 2010 came from California.

• 7 in 10: The chances that the fresh tomatoes in your salad came from Florida or California, which combined accounted for 71 percent of U.S. fresh market tomato production last year.

Do you know where the fireworks you plan to watch this weekend were produced?

• $190.7 million - The value of fireworks imported from China in 2010, representing the bulk of all U.S. fireworks imported ($197.3 million). U.S. exports of fireworks, by comparison, came to just $37.0 million in 2010, with Japan purchasing more than any other country ($6.3 million). Source: Foreign Trade Statistics

• $231.8 million - The value of U.S. manufacturers' shipments of fireworks and pyrotechnics (including flares, igniters, etc.) in 2007. Source: 2007 Economic Census

For more Fourth of July related statistics, visit our Facts for Features.

Learn more, including recipes and safety tips.

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International Data Base: June 2011

Written by: Daniel Goodkind, Loraine West and Dave Zaslow, US Census Bureau

If you were asked on a quiz show, you might know that the two countries with the largest populations in the world are China and India. But could you name the remaining countries in the top 10? And do you know which countries are expected to join the top 10 in the coming decades?

Answers can be found in the U.S. Census Bureau’s International Data Base (IDB). This leading source of demographic information on the Web is being updated today. Projections of country populations are based on assumed changes in births, deaths, and migration — information that is also available on the IDB.

The United States is currently the third most populous country in the world and is projected to remain so through 2050. In contrast, the rankings of other countries in the top 10 are expected to change. For instance, Russia and Japan are projected to drop out of this group by 2025 due to persistent low fertility, which has already caused their populations to decline. Also, by 2025 India is expected to overtake China as the world’s most populous country (see graph below). But in the future, countries with high fertility, such as Ethiopia and Nigeria, are likely to advance in the rankings.

If you are interested in countries with smaller populations, the IDB provides information about them too. The IDB provides estimates and projections for 228 countries and areas that have a population of at least 5,000 people.

Two new countries or areas are being added to the IDB with this update — Curacao and Sint Maarten — and one is being removed — Netherlands Antilles. The Netherlands Antilles dissolved on October 10, 2010. Curacao and Sint Maarten (the Dutch two-fifths of the island of Saint Martin) became autonomous territories of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Bonaire, Saba, and Saint Eustatius, the other islands of the former Netherlands Antilles, now fall under the direct administration of the Netherlands.

Students, researchers, international organizations, governments, planners, businesses, and quiz show aficionados find international data on population to be extremely useful. The IDB is a very popular demographic resource, receiving nearly 400,000 hits per month.

Read the press release.

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Mapping the 2010 Census

The Census Bureau recently released a series of new maps illustrating 2010 Census data for each state. The 2010 Census Profile maps showcase population and housing data for each state in the United States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. A national map will also be available.

In addition to a population density map, each includes a pie chart showing percent of total population by race, a population pyramid, and a bar chart illustrating housing occupancy rates.

The maps are being released on a flow basis, with more than 25 available now. To find out more information about your state, click here.

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Half of U.S. Businesses Operated from the Home

Written by: Tom Mesenbourg, Deputy Director, US Census Bureau

When we think of a business, we often conjure up an image of an office park or perhaps a storefront in a strip mall. But in reality, according to new data on firms that responded to the 2007 Survey of Business Owners (SBO), slightly more than half of U.S. businesses — 51.6 percent — were home-based. Only 6.9 percent of these home-based respondent businesses had $250,000 or more in sales and receipts, while 57.1 percent brought in less than $25,000.

The SBO provides a wealth of national-level data on the characteristics of businesses and their owners. It looks at topics like the age and educational levels of owners, types of customers and workers, and sources of financing for start-up and expansion. For instance, 58.2 percent of women-owned respondent firms were home-based. And the majority of the Hispanic-owned respondent businesses (56.1 percent) were able to conduct transactions in Spanish; the same was true of only 7.4 percent of all U.S. respondent firms.

Another interesting aspect of the SBO data is that capital commitments were modest. For budding entrepreneurs, the initial investment is often rather small, as roughly three in 10 (30.6 percent) respondent firms requiring start-up capital needed less than $5,000. Instances of massive amounts of start-up capital are relatively rare, as only 1.5 percent of these firms required $1 million or more. Believe it or not, one in 10 (10.4 percent) were actually started with a credit card — although they may have also used other sources of capital.

Here are a couple of more notable points. First, the “little guy” is important to most business owners. In 2007, 72.7 percent of the nation’s businesses reported that individual customers accounted for at least 10 percent of their total sales of goods and services. And secondly, the dreams of immigrating to the United States and then starting or acquiring a business have become a reality for many, as 13.6 percent of owners reported they were born outside the United States.

Please visit the Census Bureau Web site for more information on the characteristics of businesses and their owners.

Read the press release.

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How Prevalent is “Academic Red-Shirting”?

Written by: Kurt Bauman, Chief, Education and Social Stratification Branch, U.S. Census Bureau

College football fans are no doubt familiar with the term “red-shirting.” This practice occurs when a player participates in an academic year but not in that year’s sports season, extending his or her eligibility to play sports for another year. This usually happens during a player’s freshman year, giving them a chance to mature physically and become better adjusted to the academic rigors of school.

A similar phenomenon happens with young children: some families choose to wait until their kids are 6 years old to start kindergarten. This presumably ensures that they are mature enough, physically or academically, for school. These “academic red-shirts” make up a large number of children below modal grade, or the typical grade for people their age. For instance, the modal grade for 6-year-olds is first grade.

Overall, in 2008, the majority of students ages 6 to 17 (65 percent) were enrolled at their modal grade, with 19 percent enrolled below modal grade and 16 percent enrolled above. There were large demographic differences, however, with boys more likely than girls to be below modal grade (22 percent compared with 16 percent).

Interestingly, foreign-born students were more likely than native-born to be enrolled below and above modal grade.

Enrollment below modal grade can occur because of late entry into school but also because of students repeating grades after entering school. Repeating a grade is most common at kindergarten, first grade and ninth grade.

For more details on modal grade enrollment, see our report School Enrollment in the United States: 2008.

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A New Benchmark for Minority Business Ownership

Written by: Tom Mesenbourg, Deputy Director, US Census Bureau

This week, the Census Bureau released a summary of the data it collected on minority-, women and veteran-owned businesses from the 2007 Survey of Business Owners (SBO). These data give us a detailed portrait of the economic activity of these businesses, as well as for businesses owned by men, nonveterans and non-minorities.

One thing is clear from the data, just as the country itself is diversifying, so too is business ownership. While the total number of businesses in the country increased 17.9 percent between 2002 and 2007, the number of minority-owned businesses increased 45.5 percent — more than twice the national rate.

The SBO provides the only comprehensive, regularly collected source of information on business ownership by gender, ethnicity, race, and veteran-status. Without this survey, there would be no benchmarks for assessing and directing federal, state and local government programs designed to promote business activities among these groups.

Consider the following statistics from the 2007 SBO and the impact that minority-owned businesses had on the nation’s economy—

• Minority owned firms employed 5.8 million workers — a 24.4 percent increase over 2002.

• Women were the majority owners of 7.8 million firms that accounted for 28.8 percent of all businesses nationwide.

• Businesses where veterans were majority owners or half-owners represented 13.5 percent of all businesses nationwide.

• Sales and receipts for Hispanic-owned businesses were up 58.0 percent between 2002 and 2007.

The SBO is part of the Economic Census, which the Census Bureau conducts every five years for years ending in “2” and “7.”

To obtain more findings from the SBO, including data on men-, nonminority- and nonveteran-owned businesses, please visit, please visit the Census Bureau's website.

Read the press release.

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Visualizing Data with OnTheMap for Emergency Management

The Census Bureau released OnTheMap for Emergency Management Version 2.0 today, the beginning of the 2011 hurricane season. Version 2.0 adds floods and wildfires to hurricanes which was released last year.

OnTheMap for Emergency Management is a public data tool that provides unique detail on the workforce, for U.S. areas affected by hurricanes, floods, and wildfires, in real time. The web-based tool provides an intuitive interface for viewing the location and extent of current and forecasted emergency events on a map, and allows users to easily retrieve detailed reports containing labor market characteristics for these areas. The reports provide the number and location of jobs, industry type, worker age and earnings. Worker race, ethnicity, and educational attainment levels are under a beta release at this time.

To provide users with the latest information available, OnTheMap for Emergency Management automatically incorporates real time data updates from the National Weather Service, Departments of Interior and Agriculture, and other agencies for hurricanes, floods, and wildfires.

Version 2.0 includes the following new features and enhancements:

• Real Time Updates for Hurricanes, Floods and Wildfires
•  Expanded Hurricane Detail (Forecast Area, Current Wind Radii, Wind History)
• Expanded Reports with New Beta Data on Demographic Characteristics (Race, Ethnicity, Educational Attainment)
• Improved User Interface with New Map, Navigation, and Search Tools Map
• Animation & Timeline for Viewing Daily Event Histories

Version 2.0 also includes updated help documentation including a getting started guide, system requirements, and frequently asked questions. Data for the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire are not available at this time.

OnTheMap for Emergency Management is supported by the state Labor Market Information agencies under the Local Employment Dynamics (LED) partnership with the Census Bureau.

OnTheMap for Emergency Management Version 2.0 can be accessed by selecting "Local Employment Dynamics" at http://www.census.gov and then OnTheMap for Emergency Management under Quick Links, or directly at http://lehdmap.did.census.gov/em.html.

What do you think of the new version of OnTheMap? Post your comments here.

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