A space to explore, share and shape the issues facing social scientists
Census 2020 is far from the first census to set off bitter political fights. One hundred years ago, results from Census 1920 initiated a decadelong struggle about how to allocate a state’s seats in Congress. The political arguments were so bitter that Congress eventually decided they would not use Census 1920 results.
The concept of the labor force describes a person’s employment status, and like all U.S. Census Bureau definitions, the terminology is quite specific. The labor force consists of all people 16 years of age or older who are working (employed), are not working but are actively seeking work (unemployed)…
When most Americans think of the census, they think of the 10-year or decennial census that is used to gather basic data about the total population. The decennial census is an actual count of people and housing units, and it serves as the baseline for measuring and generating other census data-sets…
Geographer Frank Donnelly notes that census geography and maps are not automatically reliable – they can be used to intentionally skew research findings.
The social science community has a large stake in the accuracy of the U.S. Census for the community’s contued research. Here, law professor Jonathan Entin discusses the legal controversy swirling around the impact a question on citizenship has on the census, something the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing about this week.
In the current volume of ‘The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,’ the editors ask: is the current census ethno-racial classification system doing a good job? Does it accurately reflect who we are, enabling us to track important social phenomena? Does it provide statistics helpful to understanding demographic dynamics and who we are likely to become in the years ahead?
The 2020 U.S. Census is still two years away, but experts and civil rights groups are already disputing the results. Professor Emily Merchant’s research on the international history of demography demonstrates that the question of how to equitably count the population is not new, nor is it unique to the United States.
UPDATED: Many academic groups that use U.S Census data for research fear the negative effects of including a question about citizenship on the 2020 count. “Adding a new citizenship question to the 2020 Census would destroy any chance for an accurate count, discard years of careful research, and increase costs significantly,” wrote The Leadership Conference, an umbrella group.
Our Howard Silver looks over some of the personnel changes and rhetoric coming from the White House to see what lies down the road for U.S. government support of social and behavioral science and data collection.
UPDATED: The National Science Board hopes it can muster support to save a question in the annual American Community Survey that tells us how many undergrads are taking science and research degrees. And a suite of questions on marriage trends is also facing the ax.
Survey researchers are increasingly unable to get people to respond to surveys. This is a real worry because nonresponse can lead to biased research and because nonresponse poses a significant threat to the federal statistical system in its entirety.
Federal surveys have been getting more expensive to administer, in part because the number of people who actually respond to surveys has been progressively declining.
