NC in Focus
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Picture this: You’re at a demography dinner party. (Let’s pretend we can have dinner parties again.) And the demography enthusiast next to you says, “Hey! Got a question for you. Which county in North Carolina is most like the state?” How would you answer? First, you’d want to know what parameters to include – e.g. what factors to consider in thinking through how to calculate your answer. To do that, we can start with an…
28 million kids are now eligible to receive their Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines now that the shots are approved for 5 to 11-year-olds, according to the AP. We wanted to see how many kids in NC fall in this age group and determine where they live. Using the 2021 single age population projection data from the North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM), we calculated the number of individuals aged 5 through 11 by county…
North Carolina’s Hispanic population is now greater than one million people, with 1,118,596 residents according to the 2020 Census. The state’s Hispanic/Latino population grew from just over 75,000 in 1990 to 800,000 in 2010. Between 2010 and 2020, North Carolina’s Hispanic population grew by nearly 320,000 new residents, the largest numeric increase of any racial/ethnic group in the state. Statewide, the Latinx population grew by 40% over the decade, faster than the growth of this…
What determines if an area is rural or not? Why is it relevant to distinguish between urban and rural at all? In this post, we talk about why defining rural areas is difficult, and how doing so correctly can improve the lives of those who live within them. Part of the difficulty lies in picking a definition. The variety of criteria is representative of just how complex of a topic this can be. How does…
Paul Delamater, a health geographer and our colleague at the Carolina Population Center, is providing up-to-date estimates of COVID-19 cases and forecasts of vaccination across North Carolina. In addition to estimates, Delamater and a team of researchers are mapping: Schools NC COVID-19 Case Rates by School District (over the past 2 weeks) NC COVID-19 Case Rates by School District (over the past week) What CDC transmission category each school district across the state is in,…
This is the third post in a three-part series previewing redistricting in North Carolina. Earlier posts provide an overview of redistricting and a preview of what redistricting means for NC's House. Typically, redistricting starts in April, but the data delays because of Covid-19 pushed back the redistricting data release to August. Redistricting data from the 2020 census will be released on Aug. 12 at 1 p.m. ET. The redistricting files are expected to be uploaded…
This is the second post in a three-part series previewing redistricting in North Carolina. Other posts provide an overview of redistricting and a preview of what redistricting means for NC's Senate. Typically, redistricting starts in April, but the data delays because of Covid-19 pushed back the redistricting data release to August. Redistricting data from the 2020 census will be released on Aug. 12 at 1 p.m. ET. The redistricting files are expected to be uploaded…
The labor force participation rate describes the percentage of people 16 or older who are working or actively looking for work. Nationally, the seasonally-adjusted labor force participation rate for the United States in June 2021 was 61.6%. In North Carolina, the participation rate was 59.2%, 2.4 percentage points below the national rate. Why does the labor force participation rate matter and what does it tell us? The labor force participation rate is a measure of how…
The majority of North Carolina’s growth over the past few decades has been from net migration, meaning more people moved here than moved away. Recent population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau indicated that about 70% of North Carolina’s estimated growth between April 1, 2010 and July 1, 2020, came from net migration. The other 30% of our state’s growth came from natural increase, meaning more births than deaths took place in our state. Where…
Early in the pandemic, many joked about the potential for enforced proximity in March to yield a baby boom later in the year. (Many others, including most demographers, suggested otherwise.) With preliminary data for 2020 births now in, there is clear evidence of a Covid-19 baby bust. Nationally, births declined 3.8 percent in 2020 compared with 2019, with faster declines occurring at the end of the year (November and December), when the first full impacts…
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