{"id":56037,"date":"2013-07-04T12:00:48","date_gmt":"2013-07-04T17:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=56037"},"modified":"2013-07-01T00:17:23","modified_gmt":"2013-07-01T05:17:23","slug":"what-current-demographic-facts-do-you-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/07\/04\/what-current-demographic-facts-do-you-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"What Current Demographic Facts Do You Need to Know?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Family Inequality<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The other day I was surprised that a group of reporters failed to call out what seemed to be an\u00a0obvious exaggeration<\/a>\u00a0by Republican Congresspeople in a press conference. Did the reporters not realize that a 25% unemployment rate among college graduates in 2013 is implausible, were they not paying attention, or do they just assume they\u2019re being fed lies all the time so they don\u2019t bother?<\/p>\n

Last semester I launched an aggressive campaign to teach the undergraduate students in my class the size of the US population. If you don\u2019t know that \u2013 and some large portion of them didn\u2019t \u2013 how can you interpret statements such as, \u201cOn average,\u00a024 people per minute<\/a>\u00a0are victims of rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in the United States.\u201d In this case the source followed up with, \u201cOver the course of a year, that equals more than 12 million women and men.\u201d But, is that a lot? It\u2019s a lot more in the United States than it would be in China. (Unless you go with, \u201cany rape is too many,\u201d in which case why use a number at all?)<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Anyway, just the US population isn\u2019t enough. I decided to start a list of current demographic facts you need to know just to get through the day without being grossly misled or misinformed \u2013 or, in the case of journalists or teachers or social scientists, not to allow your audience to be grossly misled or misinformed. Not trivia that makes a point or statistics that are shocking, but the non-sensational information you need to know to make sense of those things when other people use them. And it\u2019s really a ballpark requirement; when I tested the undergraduates, I gave them credit if they were within 20% of the US population \u2013 that\u2019s anywhere between 250 million and 380 million!<\/p>\n

I only got as far as 22 facts, but they should probably be somewhere in any top-100. And the silent reporters the other day made me realize I can\u2019t let the perfect be the enemy of the good here. I\u2019m open to suggestions for others (or other lists if they\u2019re out there).<\/p>\n

They refer to the US unless otherwise noted:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Description<\/strong><\/td>\nNumber<\/strong><\/td>\nSource<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
World Population<\/td>\n7 billion<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
US Population<\/td>\n316 million<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Children under 18 as share of pop.<\/td>\n24%<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Adults 65+ as share of pop.<\/td>\n13%<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Unemployment rate<\/td>\n7.6%<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Unemployment rate range, 1970-2013<\/td>\n4% \u2013 11%<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Non-Hispanic Whites as share of pop.<\/td>\n63%<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Blacks as share of pop.<\/td>\n13%<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hispanics as share of pop.<\/td>\n17%<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Asians as share of pop.<\/td>\n5%<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
American Indians as share of pop.<\/td>\n1%<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Immigrants as share of pop<\/td>\n13%<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Adults with BA or higher<\/td>\n28%<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Median household income<\/td>\n$53,000<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Most populous country, China<\/td>\n1.3 billion<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2nd most populous country, India<\/td>\n1.2 billion<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3rd most populous country, USA<\/td>\n315 million<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4th most populous country, Indonesia<\/td>\n250 million<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5th most populous country, Brazil<\/td>\n200 million<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Male life expectancy at birth<\/td>\n76<\/td>\n6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Female life expectancy at birth<\/td>\n81<\/td>\n6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
National life expectancy range<\/td>\n49 \u2013 84<\/td>\n7<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Sources:<\/em>
\n1.\u00a0http:\/\/www.census.gov\/main\/www\/popclock.html<\/a>
\n2.\u00a0http:\/\/quickfacts.census.gov\/qfd\/states\/00000.html<\/a>
\n3.\u00a0http:\/\/www.bls.gov\/<\/a>
\n4. Google public data:\u00a0http:\/\/bit.ly\/UVmeS3<\/a>
\n5.\u00a0https:\/\/www.cia.gov\/library\/publications\/the-world-factbook\/rankorder\/2119rank.html<\/a>
\n6.\u00a0http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/hus\/contents2011.htm#021<\/a>
\n7.\u00a0https:\/\/www.cia.gov\/library\/publications\/the-world-factbook\/rankorder\/2102rank.html<\/a><\/p>\nPhilip N. Cohen is a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and writes the blog Family Inequality<\/a>. You can follow him on Twitter<\/a> or Facebook<\/a>.<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Family Inequality. The other day I was surprised that a group of reporters failed to call out what seemed to be an\u00a0obvious exaggeration\u00a0by Republican Congresspeople in a press conference. Did the reporters not realize that a 25% unemployment rate among college graduates in 2013 is implausible, were they not paying attention, or do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":287,"featured_media":56038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[349,223,29,135,55,1813,1772,1784,1785,3920,285],"class_list":["post-56037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ageaging","tag-childrenyouth","tag-class","tag-demography","tag-gender","tag-nation-brazil","tag-nation-china","tag-nation-india","tag-nation-indonesia","tag-nation-united-states","tag-raceethnicity"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/07\/1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56037"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56114,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56037\/revisions\/56114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}