Demographics

A Guide to Methods and Data Sources for Media, Business, and Government

Steven H. Murdock, Chris Kelley, Jeffrey L. Jordan, Beverly Pecotte, Alvin Luedke

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317261353
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Demographics has become a critical dimension of the work of many journalists, business professionals, and government analysts and managers. Yet those who are not professional demographers often find locating and effectively using demographics difficult. Written by leading authorities, Demographics provides a single-volume resource that is readily understandable by everyone. It describes and demonstrates how students and working professionals can obtain, use, and communicate demographic information effectively. Consisting of ten chapters organized into four sections on basic demographic concepts, definitions, and methods, this book includes sources of demographic and economic data as well as explanations and examples of how to effectively and accurately use them.

Chapter 1
Introduction: Demographics in the Media, Business, and Government

This is a volume dedicated to helping readers learn how to locate and effectively use demographic and related data. It is intended for use by members of the media, human resource specialists, marketing specialists, public- and private-sector managers at all levels, and beginning students in demography and social science courses who use demographic data and techniques to address specific issues and needs. But what is demography and demographics and how are they used in the professional and applied worlds? In this introductory chapter, we begin by defining what we mean by demography and demographics and by delineating what is and what is not included when we use such terms. We then provide a brief overview of what the text will examine, and we conclude with a description of the specific organization of the remainder of the text and the limitations of the work.

What Are Demography and Demographics?

Demography and the derivative term, demographics, are increasingly familiar to us all, and nearly everyone is familiar with the general connotation conveyed by, these terms. For example, we commonly hear that a particular television show is intended to reach a specific demographic group, that various markets for goods and services are intended for specific demographic niches, or that the workforce must come to more adequately reflect the characteristics of the population of a region or the nation. Similarly, in the media, interest in demographics has come to play an increasingly important role in many types of reporting (see Box 1.1).

As we begin our discussion here, however, it is essential to present a more complete and technically correct definition. Demography is usually defined by the professional as the study of the size, distribution, and composition of populations; the processes determining these—namely fertility, mortality, and migration; and the determinants and consequences of all of the above (see Bogue 1968; Murdock and Ellis 1991). Demographers sometimes further differentiate between “formal demographers,” who specifically focus on the demographic processes and the technical measurement of these factors and their implications for populations, and “social demographers,” who stress the effects of demographic factors on other social, economic, and nondemographic factors. Others may differentiate between the pure or basic-science demographers, who seek knowledge of demographic factors and their impacts for knowledge’s sake, and the “applied demographers,” who use such information to address pragmatic questions.

Box 1.1: Demography in the Media

Consider these headlines featured in recent issues of leading newspapers and news weeklies in the U.S.:

• “Flow of illegal immigrants to U.S. unabated”
• “2030 forecast: mostly gray”
• “Smaller percentage of poor live in high-poverty areas”

Once considered the domain of the pocket-protector crowd, issues related to demography are now a mainstream staple for news consumers.

Immigration, same-sex marriage, social security reform, prison populations—they’re all fuel for interest in demography, the study of human population and its structure and change.

And when stories pertain to demographics—understanding what people think, what they are willing to buy, and how many fit this profile—interest levels soar.

Demography is a descriptive and predictive science. Demographics is an applied art and science. In both cases, the objects of study are the characteristics of human populations.

And when humans are the subject, other humans are sure to follow.

In the case of demography, the characteristics being studied tend to emphasize biological processes such as population dynamics; demographics is also concerned with a wide range of economic, social, and cultural characteristics.

Certainly, the demographer’s work isn’t simply to indulge the curiosity of the masses. However, serious analysis by the media of populations, patterns, and institutions has made for front-page news:

• In the political and judicial arena, subjects such as voting, representation and redistricting, jury selection, criminal justice, and prison populations have all made headlines.
• In the education arena, educational attainment, enrollment, and school redistricting are regular staples for news columns and airwaves.
• In the economic arena, subjects such as labor force, retirement, gender and race and income inequality are hot topics as are those in the family arena, such as living arrangements, commute times, and health providers.

Indeed, stories that feature a real person’s life experience—a face behind the numbers—serves the public’s need and desire to know about forces affecting their lives.

Journalist William Dunn (1992:191), author of Selling the Story, calls this bringing the numbers to life. “By delving into the grassroots repercussions of demographic trends and citing real-life examples, you can make the data understandable and palatable to readers and listeners who are eager to know how trends will affect them.”

That doesn’t mean reporters get the story right all the time. Mathematics is a chronic problem in the journalism field. Since numbers are at the heart of demography and demographics, the correction columns of U.S. newspapers attest to the pressure-filled rush to meet deadlines. There are often sweeping generalizations drawn from specific cases, exaggeration, and use of inappropriate data to quantify something.

Conclusions drawn from numbers are often “spun” by so-called experts pushing an agenda. The shade and tone of a story, in which the highlighting of one set of factors or statistics over another, can also lead to garbled and “misinformed” information.

News media reports involving demography generally can be categorized two ways: popular and important. Important stories are rarely popular because they tend to showcase crucial issues society does not want to face. Popular stories are rarely important because they most often are reduced to “info-tainment”—fodder for crossword puzzles.

Some of the most popular and important demographically based stories in the media emerge from the U.S. Census Bureau. A census generates news of historical significance. After all, an old joke goes, it was a census that brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.

Interest in the census stems from how the numbers have changed—that is, their variance. Variance is news. Walter Lippmann (1965:216) noted this in the early twentieth century when he said, “The more points… at which any happening can be fixed, objectified, measured, named, the more points there are at which news can occur.”

Some recent data releases by the U.S. Census Bureau illustrate the point. Indeed, the Bureau has become adept at generating news (and justifying the importance of the Census Bureau):

• Texas Becomes Nation’s newest “Majority-minority” state, Census Bureau announces (Aug. 11, 2005)
• Nation adds 3 million people in last year; Nevada again fastest-growing state. (Dec. 22, 2004)
• Florida, California, and Texas to dominate future population growth, Census Bureau reports. (April 21, 2005)

News organizations often take Census Bureau news releases and attempt to localize them for their readers and viewers. Newsrooms devoted to news Web sites will often go the extra mile and create databases from census data releases so that readers may search and find just the information they’re looking for. Indeed, the Census Bureau’s Web site is bookmarked on many reporters’ favorites list.

One of the more popular features provided by the Census Bureau is the “special report” issued on holidays.

Take Halloween of 2004. The Bureau estimated the number of potential “trick-or-treaters”—5 to 13 year olds—at 36.8 million. Who knew?

And how many potential stops could trick-or-treaters make at housing units occupied year-round? 106 million.

And where are “some places around the country that may put you in the Halloween mood?” How about Transylvania County, N.C. (29,406 residents) or Tombstone, Ariz. (population 1,547) or Skull Creek, Neb. (population 296).

As interesting as such information might be, there are far more important demographically based stories to report. Just ask members of Congress, whose districts in the U.S. House of Representatives are subject to change (or elimination) following U.S. Census population measurements. Indeed, some of the most important issues of our time—social security, welfare reform, voting patterns, transportation, environmental policy, and federal aid to cities and states based on population–are key subjects of study for demographers and news consumers.

In the end, the best expression of a worthwhile media story about demography may well have been written by British mathematician Ian Stewart (1987:3) in The Problems of Mathematics. If for “mathematics” you substitute “demography” (or whatever specialized subject you’re reading), you’ll find some pretty sound advice not only for consuming media but also for creating it. “Tell us what the problems are, where they come from, how they get solved, what the people who solve them are like, what you can do with the answers when you’ve got them, what problems haven’t been solved yet, how solving them or failing to solve them changes people’s views of what [mathematics] is and where it’s going.”

The content topics studied by demographers may be best explained by examining Figure 1.1 derived from Murdock and Ellis (1991:7). As is evident from an examination of the items in this figure, demography not only examines the basic factors of population change and the fertility, mortality, and migration processes that produce such change, but also spans a large number of related substantive issue areas such as aging, family, and household patterns; changes in socioeconomic factors such as income and education; and changes in the industrial and occupational composition of an area’s workforce.

Despite the obvious breadth of topics covered by professional demographers, the term demographics has an even wider meaning. Demographics is a nontechnical term generally used to connote information and data on the size, geographic distribution, and characteristics of a population that affect its use of, its participation in, and/or its access to specific types of goods and services. It involves the examination of how demographic factors affect such things as the markets for goods and services, school enrollment, the best location for a commercial facility, or the identification of the appropriate populations for labor force recruitment.

The forms of analyses being examined in this work obviously fit within the realm of the social and applied forms of demography. Although some technical issues will be discussed as they are used in applied areas, readers wanting more technical explanations should refer to more specialized texts (see, for example, Siegel and Swanson 2004; Siegel 2002).

Figure 1.1: Major Variables/Dimensions in a Demographic Analysis

What Will Be Examined in this Text and Why?

Despite increasing familiarity with the term demographics, those who are not professional demographers often find it difficult to locate and effectively use demographic and related information. How do you find data on workforce characteristics; on the number of persons with specific income levels; and on the related consumer expenditures, service usage, or tax revenues related to specific population segments? When are data on a demographic characteristic too old to use and when is it better to use older rather than more recent data? When you do locate such data, it is often provided in forms and conveyed in technical terminology and in terms of mathematical and statistical rates and forms that are unfamiliar to lay users. What specifically is meant by a crude birth rate or by life expectancy and life span? What is a cohort-component demographic projection? What is the difference between household and family income? What are the ways that you can tell how reliable data are likely to be and thus how safely one can use them in an important news story or market analysis? How do you write clearly and effectively about demographic data? What are the best ways to graphically illustrate demographic information (for example, charts, tables, graphs)? What are the most effective ways to communicate written and graphic information for written reports and for newspapers, television, radio, and the Internet?

This text attempts to concisely address such issues for the nonprofessional demographer in a single source reference book that, (1) explains basic demographic concepts, terms, and methods widely used in descriptions of groups, areas, and markets; (2) describes the basic sources for specific types of demographic, economic, and other socioeconomic and service information at a variety of geographical levels; (3) provides guidance and examples of how to efficiently, effectively, and appropriately use demographics in news stories, in the administration of personnel and other programs, in the analysis of market areas and segments, in location analyses, and in other forms of media, business, and management analyses; and (4) presents examples of the location and application of such data in the media, business, and government.

This text fills a niche between the technical information available in applied demography texts that stress more advanced statistical methods (Murdock and Ellis 1991; Siegel 2002) and those volumes that are largely listings of sources and methods of analyses for specific issues and/or professional groups, such as the media (see for example, Bass 2001; Weinberg 1996; Kovach and Rosentiel 2001; Meyer 1972); marketing and advertising (Lazer 1997; Pooler 2002); management (Tsui and Gutek 2000); or business in general (Pol and Thomas 1997; Kintner et al. 1995).

This text differs from sources such as those above in three primary ways. First, it provides a general guide to sources that is relatively generic and thus of greater utility to the general analyst who works in multiple areas. It is likely to appeal to the increasing number of journalists and business analysts who work in multiple beats and business enterprises and to managers of profit and nonprofit organizations. Second, its section on how to effectively use such data is relatively unique. All of the above noted sources either provide a guide to sources or present methods for analysis in specific areas. General principles for data use are often largely ignored, and thus these works often do little to provide the readers with general guidance that can assist them in working with many different types of data. Finally, this text is unique in its comprehensive coverage of printed and Internet sources; its description of basic methods for data manipulation and use; and its explanation of materials, methods, and applications through easy to understand examples. We hope that such features ensure that the text will occupy a niche that will make it of substantial and unique value to readers.

Organization of the Text

This text consists of nine chapters, including this introduction, divided into four parts. The four parts examine (1) the basic concepts and methods of demographic analyses; (2) the major sources of demographic and related data; (3) principles and methods for the effective and appropriate use of demographic data and information; and (4) examples of the use of demographic data and methods in the areas of media, business, and government. Each of these parts, and each chapter within, is written as a stand-alone segment that can be mastered by the reader without reading the rest of the text. Thus, this text can be used as a reference source to address specific questions as well as used as a more complete source for obtaining a wider understanding of the subject matter.

The first part examines concepts, terms, and methods. It introduces the reader to those basic demographic concepts that are likely to be encountered in reading demographic materials. Even more importantly, it provides readers with an introduction to sources that can be consulted to find the correct definitions for areal units (e.g., blocks, tracts, metropolitan and micropolitan areas), variable and term definitions (e.g., hou...