Carolina Demographics
Keep up with our latest demographic insights
"Transportation for America's recent report, "Aging in Place: Stuck Without Options," shows that as we grow too old to drive safely, alternative transportation options are a necessity but often hard to find. Based on recent surveys, 88 percent of older adults continue to drive at age 65, but that percentage drops to 69 percent by age 75. This means that by age 75, 31 percent of seniors must seek alternative ways to get around. ...the not-so-distant future also includes…
Dynamics of population change at sub-county levels are key to understanding the local impacts of broader demographic shifts. Unfortunately, sub-county geographies, such as census tracts, change substantially from decade to decade, posing a barrier to direct comparison over time. To overcome this barrier, Carolina Demography developed a methodology to bridge (or normalize) the 2000 Census data into 2010 census tract boundaries. We then used 2010 Census data to directly compare change over time. The maps…
In the three years following the 2010 Census, North Carolina’s population grew by nearly 313,000 residents. With today’s release of the 2013 county population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, we can now examine where in the state this growth occurred. Here’s what you need to know: 1. Charlotte and the Triangle accounted for 67% of NC population growth. Two-thirds of state population growth occurred in the 12 counties that make up the Charlotte and…
865,000 North Carolinians—nearly 9% of the total population—identified themselves as “Irish” on ancestry questions in the 2012 American Community Survey (ACS). (An additional quarter million identified themselves as Scotch-Irish, but this ethnic origin is considered distinct from Irish.) Among individuals specifying an ancestry or ethnic origin, Irish is the 5th most common in North Carolina after African-American, American, German, and English. The map below shows concentrations of individuals of Irish ancestry across the state by…
More than 200,000 North Carolina grandparents live with their grandchildren, representing 3.6% of the population 30 and older, according to 2008-2012 American Community Survey data. Half of these grandparents are responsible for the care of their grandchildren, meaning that they are providing for most of their basic needs. Most of these grandparents have been responsible for the care of their grandchildren for years: 40% have been providing for their grandchildren for 5 or more years,…
Duke v. UNC is consistently ranked the best rivalry in college basketball, and one of the greatest rivalries of all American sports: The teams are consistently among the best in their sport. The campuses are all of eight miles apart. The games are among the most hyped of each college basketball season and they rarely disappoint, and frequently determine the ACC champion. Beyond head-to-head competition, the rivalry is close on nearly every metric: fan base…
I’ve heard someone joke that, prior to 1980, there were two languages spoken in North Carolina: English and bad English. This probably runs fairly true to most people’s day-to-day experiences before the more recent wave of immigration. In 1980, just over 2% of North Carolina residents age 5 and older, or 130,640 individuals, spoke a language other than English at home. Today, nearly 11% speak a language other than English at home, representing nearly a…
Half of North Carolina adults age 16 and older are currently married according to the 2012 American Community Survey. Another 5% are unmarried but living with a romantic partner; 366,000 are cohabiting with an opposite-sex partner, 37,200 with a same-sex partner. Figure 1 shows marital status by age group. In the youngest group, ages 16 to 24, the vast majority (87%) are single/never married. The proportion of younger individuals who have never been married has…
Nationwide, there are nearly 21.5 million veterans. More than 736,000 veterans live in North Carolina, representing 9.8% of the state’s total population. Below is a snapshot of the most recent statistics on North Carolina veterans. Who are North Carolina's veterans? The median age of NC veterans is 61. The majority of veterans are 45 or older: 41% are ages 45-64 and 38% are 65 or older. 91% of NC veterans are male. 9% are female.…
1. World Births and Deaths in Real-Time Mathematician and software developer Brad Lyon previously developed a statistical simulation of the geographic location of US births and deaths and an interactive visualization that marked these events in real-time. Recently, he took the simulation and visualization global. Worldwide, more than 4 births and nearly 2 deaths occur each second. Lyon uses country-specific data to simulate both the timing and location of global births and deaths. The interactive…
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