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Many couples today choose to live together prior to getting married, after which the majority of people do get married. In 2021, almost half of all North Carolinians ages 16 or older were currently married, on par with the nation. (This percentage has been steadily decreasing. North Carolina’s currently married population peaked in 1960 – when almost 70% of adults 16 and older in North Carolina were married. That’s the highest percentage since (the Decennial…
There are many reasons for choosing to live with a partner without marrying or prior to getting married, including financial reasons or to test the relationship prior to marriage. In demography, we refer to unmarried romantic partners living together using the term cohabitation. Fifty years ago, it was very rare to live with an unmarried partner. Only 0.1 percent of 18-24-year-olds and 0.2 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds lived with an unmarried partner in…
After this piece was published, the DMV reached out to Carolina Demography to note that they have implemented several efforts to increase availability of appointments. These include providing walk-in appointments after noon, opening more offices at 7am, and having Saturday office hours for peak season. They also note that every driver license office in the state takes only walk-ins every afternoon. Starting with the 2023 election, voters in North Carolina will be asked to show…
Are you curious how North Carolina ranks among the states for statistical categories like population, education, government, employment, agriculture, transportation, and more? The newly-updated 2023 How NC Ranks data tool from the NC State Data Center (NC SDC) and NC Office of State Budget and Management (NC OSBM) provides data visualizations highlighting selected data points for the US and North Carolina Notably, the tool also provides historical data, which allows analysis and comparisons over time.…
The number of babies born each year in North Carolina, as well as the United States, has been dropping. We published a piece on the topic two years ago when provisional numbers were first released about birthrates during the 2020 pandemic. Since then, the final data has been released. (If you read both this piece and the piece we wrote earlier, you’ll notice that percentages are slightly different – that piece was based on…
Achieving a complete and accurate count in the U.S. Census is not simple. The biggest challenge in conducting the census is getting households to mail back or complete their forms online or by phone, a process known as self-response. Higher self-response rates reduce the overall costs of conducting the census. And, when individuals self-respond, the data is more accurate. Before the 2020 Census, Carolina Demography partnered with the NC Counts Coalition to create a map…
The 2022 Population Estimates show that the population of North Carolina grew by 1.3% between July 1st 2021 and July 1st 2022. Among North Carolina’s 100 counties, 74 experienced population growth. The majority of counties grew from people moving in (migration) rather than from having more births than deaths, which is what demographers call natural increase. 74 counties grew between July 2021 and July 2022 North Carolina overall grew by an estimated 1.3% between July…
The U.S. Census Bureau released their 2022 population estimates for municipalities earlier this month. Here’s what the new data tell us about how North Carolina’s cities and towns have changed in the past year. Greensboro passes 300K residents On July 1st 2022, Greensboro’s estimated population was 301,115, up from an estimated 299,225 on July 1st 2021. Wake Forest also passed a major milestone, passing 50,000 residents as of 2022 (as predicted in our blog post…
Dr. Michael Cline is the state demographer for North Carolina at the Office of State Budget and Management and has given us permission to re-post his content here. On May 25, 2023, the US Census Bureau published the Demographic Profile and Demographic and Housing Characteristic (DHC) datasets for the 2020 Census. These datasets provide a more expansive picture of the population counted in the 2020 Census than the 2020 Census data published to date. From…
In January, we posted a blog by Dr. Mike Cline, the NC State Demographer, “Making Sense of the New ‘Urban Area’ Definitions” in which he addressed the changes to how the Census Bureau defines urban areas. This post details the implications of the definition changes and the changing urban-rural composition of North Carolina’s population in general. First, what do urban and rural mean? To recap, before 2020, the Census Bureau’s definition of urban was based…
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