Research

For 2012 election-related commentary, please see these recent posts : Forget Ohio, it’s all about Virginia…and demographics Virginia Votes 2012 Virginia Votes 2012:  Turnout across localities Lower turnout in 2012 makes the case for political realignment in 2008 As part of my larger work on the 2012 election in Virginia (which I plan to release […]

Last week, May 17 to be exact, marked the anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, the 1954 Supreme Court case that declared racially segregated schools “inherently unequal.” Reading an op-ed this weekend that relayed some of the benefits of racially integrated schools piqued my curiosity about the status of school segregation in […]

Interested in our most recent work on population projections and estimates? See it all here.The Census population estimates for 2011, released early in April, received a good deal of attention in the media, in large part because the estimates showed a noticeable change in population growth patterns from those of the last decade. Growth from […]

In her post “How old is old? Is 80 the new 65?”, Susan discussed how increases in longevity have dramatically increased the typical years lived post-retirement.  The average 65-year-old retiree is now expected to survive until age 84.  These changes mean that retirees need increasing amounts of money to afford a comfortable retirement and provide […]

The Pew Hispanic Center recently released a report about Mexican immigration to the United States.  The report showed that net migration from Mexico has fallen to zero. Here are some interesting facts that the researchers found using demographic data from both the United States and Mexico: In the last four decades, millions of Mexicans migrated […]

Looking for the most current occupation information? See the Trailblazers: Career and Technical Education in Virginia blog. Every two years the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics produces a new set of national employment projections for 750 different occupations organized into 22 major groups. They also produce a broad set of supporting materials, from academic and […]

The vote on the proposed Amendment One in North Carolina, which defines marriage in the NC state constitution as between one man and one woman, and bans any other type of domestic legal union, such as civil unions and domestic partnership, passed yesterday. This result has been all over the news today, and it might […]

Several weeks ago, I posted an article on the importance of humanizing data so that people better understand the stories that lie behind the numbers.  Sometimes these data can help us uncover profound truths about ourselves as well as provide insights into society as a whole.The internet has been all a buzz about the recent release […]

The Weldon Cooper Center released a report today examining geographic and demographic changes in Virginia’s black population over time: Blacks in Virginia: Demographic Trends in Historical Context. One topic in the report is the continued residential segregation of blacks in Virginia’s big metropolitan centers. I thought it would be interesting, as well, to have a […]

Speaking of infographics, I’ve been playing with the college completion data I highlighted previously. Below is a star chart (aka radar chart, spider chart) of data on Virginia’s 4-year public colleges.Each spoke represents a different piece of data, and the length of the spoke conveys the magnitude of that data for each university. The colleges […]