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One of my favorite stories of North Carolina’s demographic growth and change is the “halfback.” These are transplanted Northerners, moving out of Florida to mid-south states halfway back to the North -- to the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia. In North Carolina, much of the conversation focuses on the large in-flow of New Yorkers into the state. There are significant anecdotal reports of the halfback phenomenon, but what do the data say? In the most…
The percentage of North Carolina adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher rose from 22.8% in 2001 to 28.6% in 2014, according to data from the American Community Survey. Asian-Americans had the highest educational attainment, with more than half of North Carolina’s Asian adults holding a bachelor’s degree or higher in 2014. Non-Hispanic whites also had higher rates of holding bachelor’s degrees than the state overall: 32.4%. The percentage of Asian adults holding a bachelor’s…
“The US homeownership rate reached 63.4% in the second quarter of 2015, the lowest level in almost fifty years. The homeownership rate is especially low among millennials, and continues to decline each quarter. There are many factors affecting this trend – rising rents, student loans, and delayed marriages, for example – making it difficult to forecast trends in millennial homeownership… Our research suggests that affordability is the biggest barrier to homeownership, with 77% of millennials…
“In 2014, for the first time in more than 130 years, adults ages 18 to 34 were slightly more likely to be living in their parents’ home than they were to be living with a spouse or partner in their own household. This turn of events is fueled primarily by the dramatic drop in the share of young Americans who are choosing to settle down romantically before age 35. Dating back to 1880, the most…
Nationwide, 58.7% of U.S. residents currently live in the same state they were born in, according to 2010-2014 American Community Survey data. This ranges from a high of 78% in Louisiana to a low of 25% in Nevada. North Carolina is similar to the national average: 57.8% of North Carolina state residents were born here. Among North Carolina’s counties, the proportion NC-native ranges from less than 1 in 3 residents in both Currituck (25.5%) and…
What language do you speak at home? Nearly one million North Carolinians reported speaking a language other than English at home, representing 11% or 1 in 9 state residents age 5 and older. Recently released tables from the U.S. Census Bureau provide detail on up to 380 unique languages and language groups spoken in states and select metro areas and counties based on the 2009-2013 American Community Survey. Non-English speakers are concentrated in the state’s…
North Carolina’s foreign-born population has grown by more than 800% over the past 35 years. In 1980, fewer than 80,000 North Carolina residents had been born in another country to non-citizen parents. By the 2012-2014 time period, more than 750,000 North Carolina residents were foreign-born. Most of this growth was driven by the increases in the populations born in Latin America (Central and South America) and Asia. This post focuses on trends in the foreign-born…
A growing number of North Carolinians are working at home. Since 2012, more than 200,000 North Carolina workers have reported working at home each year, about 4.7% of all state workers according to the American Community Survey data. Are teleworkers similar to individuals who don’t work at home? An examination of the last three years of ACS data—2012 through 2014—suggests they are not. Compared to all North Carolina workers, individuals who report working from home…
As we’ve mentioned in the past, North Carolina has a large population residing in areas that the U.S. Census Bureau classifies as rural. Among the 10 most populous states, North Carolina has the largest proportion of individuals living in rural areas. In fact, North Carolina’s rural population is larger than that of any other state except for Texas. Prior to coming to Carolina Demography, I worked in a similar role producing and interpreting demographic data…
Following the decennial Census, political districts, such as U.S. Congressional Districts and state legislative districts, are reapportioned to states and counties on the basis of population and their boundaries are redrawn in a process called redistricting. Broadly speaking, the goal of redistricting is to make each district as close in population size in possible. North Carolina is not the only state with uneven patterns of population growth. Across the United States, population is increasingly concentrated in urban and…
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