Using the Census: What it Tells Us About America’s People, Workforce, and Small Communities
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The May 2 COSSA seminar, Using the Census: What it Tells Us About America’s People, Workforce, and Small Communities, brought three leading social scientists to Capitol Hill to illustrate that the Census is more than simply a count, but offers significant information about who we are, how we got here, and where we are going. The event, attended by more than 60 congressional and federal agency officials and others, was held in the Rayburn House Office Building.
After a brief welcome by COSSA Executive Director Howard J. Silver, Reynolds Farley, Research Scientist and Professor of Sociology at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan, gave an overview of social and economic changes taking place in American society. Farley said “censuses are cameras that capture and freeze frame our history.” A major change, he said, is the incorporation of women into the mainstream of our economy. He said that Census data reveal the dramatic increases in women’s educational and professional attainment. A second area of social change, according to Farley, is the composition of family life. Demographic data show that the age of marriage has advanced rapidly, an acceptance of cohabitation as a substitute of marriage, an increased divorce rate, and an increase in out of wedlock births.
The third of area of social change Farley discussed regards immigration, and he commented that the Census is our best source of information about immigration. He said that this data indicate that we are a nation with a slow growing white population, a slow growing black population, and very rapidly growing Asian and Latino populations. Farley noted the geographic concentration of immigration, saying that only 14 locations have a proportion of foreign-born above the national average. With the exception of Chicago, most of the Midwest, Rocky Mountain, and much of the South have been unaffected by immigration, while cities such as Miami and Los Angeles have been transformed. The fourth and final example he cited of policy-relevant data supplied by the Census concerned economic restructuring. What social scientists have found, Farley said is: a high rate of employment, the ability of the economy to incorporate women, and a polarization of income. While the causes of macro economic shifts can be debated, Farley said it is the Census that can tell us the impacts of these changes.
Suzanne Bianchi, Professor of Sociology and Faculty Associate at the Center on Population, Gender, and Social Inequality at the University of Maryland, presented Census data on women in the workforce. She said that the Census reveals a lot about the working family and “how much women’s lives have changed in just a generation, and consequently how much families have changed.” She said that one theme that clearly emerges is balancing work and family, as women have added labor market activity at the same time they are rearing children, a “dramatic departure” from previous generations. Bianchi said that the Census can measure our success in gender equality.
Four findings unique to Census data, Bianchi said, are: a long-term analysis on women’s educational and economic attainment; the ability to look at women in terms of generations, in that each decennial census captures a generational cohort (i.e., Depression, World War II, etc.); extensive occupational detail, and comprehensive racial, ethnic, and geographical detail. Bianchi presented data showing female labor participation rates based on the 1990 Census that indicate large proportions of women in the workforce along the Eastern Seaboard and in the Heartland, but far lower in the South. As Farley said of immigration, Bianchi noted those working women are also geographically concentrated.
Paul Voss, Professor and Chair of the Department of Rural Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, discussed the significance of the Census for small communities. He said that rural communities use the Census to see how they have changed in the decade since the last Census. In a sophisticated way they compare themselves with neighboring communities, he said, as the decennial data provides even the smallest communities with information such as educational status, income and poverty, transportation patterns, labor force participation, languages spoken, and housing data. Voss said the richness of the data makes it more than just a count. A specific example of the Census’ impact on rural areas are the influences of prisons. Voss said that many small communities are seeking out these facilities, and that the Census data allows one to look at the impact of the area’s social and economic condition before and after the facility was created. He said that the demographic data supplied by the Census is crucial to the planning efforts of small communities.
Voss expressed concern about the current state of the Census in Congress. Terming it “an undertaking that is in deep trouble,” he noted congressional opposition to the Census Bureau’s plans to use statistical sampling methods for non-response follow-up, and also those in Congress who would eliminate the “long form” questionnaire sent to a sample of households. He said that the data user community is worried that federal budget pressures will inhibit the critical information needed in the 21st century. He said sampling is a scientifically-proven method to reach the hardest to count segments of our population, and would help reduce the cost of the 2000 Census. He said he found it hard to believe Congress would reject something proven to save money. Voss noted studies showing that there would be an insufficient supply of temporary enumerators in 2000 to conduct a successful Census without sampling.