D’Vera Cohn

This posting explores statistics about marriage rates, median age at first marriage and attitudes about marriage. Although the marriage rate is at a record low, most never-married Americans say they would like to marry. "Love" is cited more than other factors as a reason to get married, according to a Pew Research Center survey.

A new Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data finds that U.S.-born adult children of immigrants are better off than immigrants on key measures of socio-economic well-being. The same report analyzes survey data on Hispanics and Asian Americans, comparing attitudes of immigrants and U.S.-born children of immigrants on politics, values, language use and other measures.

The Census Bureau has released new U.S. population projections that assume a markedly lower level of growth than the agency predicted in the previous projections in 2008. Most of the reduced growth is due to lower projected immigration, but the bureau also forecast lower birth rates than it previously assumed.

There were 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in March 2011, unchanged from the previous two years and a continuation of the sharp decline in this population since its peak in 2007, according to estimates by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. The estimate for 2011 is not […]

There were 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in March 2011, unchanged from the previous two years and a continuation of the sharp decline in this population since its peak in 2007, according to estimates by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. The estimate for 2011 is not […]

A new Pew Research Center report concludes that the decline in birth rates and number of births from 2007 to 2010 was led by immigrant women. Overall birth rates declined 8% during this period, but birth rates for immigrant women plunged 14%. Overall numbers of births declined 7% from 2007 to 2010, but births to immigrant mothers fell by 13%. Despite these decreases, foreign-born mothers still account for a disproportionate share of births--23% in 2010, greater than the 17% share of women of childbearing age who are immigrants.

The U.S. birth rate dipped in 2011 to the lowest ever recorded, led by a plunge in births to immigrant women since the onset of the Great Recession. The overall U.S. birth rate, which is the annual number of births per 1,000 women in the prime childbearing ages of 15 to 44, declined 8% from […]

The minority groups that carried President Obama to victory yesterday by giving him 80% of their votes are on track to become a majority of the nation’s population by 2050, according to projections by the Pew Research Center. They currently make up 37% of the population, and they cast a record 28% of the votes […]

Every decade, new information from the decennial census is used to update a wide range of government demographic estimates and survey benchmarks. In some cases, that results in revisions to previously published data, which researchers need to note.

The Census Bureau released 2011 American Community Survey data today, and this posting looks at news coverage about the newly released estimates. Most coverage focused on economic indicators, with some stories saying the economy was still declining but others concluding the decline may have bottomed out.