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SINGLE STATS: Singles Count With the Census Bureau From Singles, The Magazine for Today's Single Ever wonder how many American adults aren't married? In 1998, it was 44 percent, in 1990 it was 51 percent. That's just one of the statistics that's available for singles on the U.S. Census Bureau's Website. Every 10 years, the U.S. Census Bureau counts everyone in the United States and develops a broad range of data. All the information isn't released at once. In fact, information will be released from the decennial census over the next three years. At the Census Bureau's Website, you can find a list of when the data will be released. Population totals for each state are already available because each state is currently developing its new congressional districts as well as state Legislature districts. Since each of us must have an equal vote, those districts have to be redrawn each decade once we know where Americans now live. We're becoming a much more urban nation -- and for the first time in decades, every state in the nation grew in population. But the Census Bureau doesn't stop with the full count every decade -- during the years between, they develop a host of other data about us. According to the 1998 report of marital status and living arrangements, about 10 percent of adults, 19.4 million of s were "currently divorced" in 1998 and nearly 35 percent of adults between 25 and 34 had never been married. Nearly half of women 65 and over were widowed and of those, seven in 10 live alone. There are a host of interesting facts about Americans on the Website. For example, women have been getting married at older ages over the last century, while men's ages fell and then rose again. The average age for a woman to marry in 1998 was 25; for a man, it was 26.7. There are maps of the data as well as the facts in tables. If you want to see a map of the United States with the proportion of men to women, it's available. In 1990, Alaska had 114 men to every 100 women over age 18. But the state still has a low population -- fewer than one million of us live there. Almost one in four of us live alone. Wonder which states have the highest percentages of people living alone? New York, Montana, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri and Nebraska have the highest percentages of adults living alone -- at least 25.9 percent. About 84 percent of children who live with only one parent live with their mother. And the largest percentage of households with children are found in states like Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, Utah, Idaho, New Mexico and Colorado. Those with the smallest percentages of households with children include Florida and Arizona. Makes sense, doesn't it? After all, there are lots of retired individuals who chose to live in Florida and Arizona. The Census Bureau also has information about other countries. Did you know that there are more men than women in Australia in many age groups? That's only true of the United States among adults 20-24. Any older than 24, women outnumber men in the U.S. What the census provides is a snapshot of America -- and like all snapshots it only records one brief moment in time. Even a short time later, the picture is shifting. People are born, die, marry and divorce. But it does tell us a lot about who we are at that moment in time. Internet References: The U.S. Census Bureau's home page, with links to a wide range of information - http://www.census.gov/ |