Posts written by Lisa Carlson
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Last week, the U.S (United States). Census Bureau released 2023 county population estimates. These annual estimates tell us how county populations in North Carolina have changed over the course of a year: in this case, between July 1, 2022 and July 1, 2023. The county population estimates are more granular than the statewide estimates released every December. In the most recent state population estimate, released in December 2023, North Carolina’s population increased by 1.3% (139,526…
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…
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…
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…
It’s hard to access Census microdata (individual survey responses) without specialized tools or software. But a new tool from the Census Bureau, the Microdata Access Tool (MDAT) makes it easy to create custom tables and statistics that may not be available on data.census.gov in the standard tables. In this blog post, I walk you through when and how to use the MDAT tool, available through data.census.gov. The Census Bureau also has an excellent video tutorial…
Baby Boomers — those born between 1946 and 1964 — started turning 65 in 2011. Since that time, over 100,000 North Carolinians have turned 65 each year and this trend will continue well into the future. As Mike Cline noted in his look at NC’s population projects, the older adult population in North Carolina is expected to grow at double the rate of the overall population.. We can see this trend already taking place: In…
From 2010 to 2020, North Carolina’s population grew by 9.8% with 49 of our 100 counties increasing in population. Among the largest gains: Charlotte and its suburbs, the Triangle region, and areas from Jacksonville (Onslow County) to Wilmington along the Atlantic Ocean. The map below shows a more detailed view of where we saw the biggest growth and losses amongst Census tracts. A Census tract is a unit of geographic measurement defined by the U.S.…
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