Administrative records
Data collected for administrative purposes — for example, records kept by state education departments concerning public schools.
Age
Defined as the age of the person at his/her last birthday. Adults (i.e., population of marriageable age) are people 15 years old and over.
Age-adjusted rate
A rate that has been standardized to control for differences or changes in the age structure of two or more populations.
Age-specific fertility rate
Number of births per 1,000 women in a given age group.
Baby boom
The period following World War II (from 1946 to 1964) marked by
a dramatic increase in fertility rates in the United States. The term "baby boomers" refers to those born during the baby boom.
Baby bust
The period following the baby boom (from 1965 to the late
1970s) marked by a rapid decline in fertility rates in the United States.
Census
A canvass of a given area, resulting in an enumeration of the entire population and the compilation of demographic, social, and economic information pertaining to that population at a specific time.
Centenarians
People ages 100 and older.
Childbearing ages
Generally refers to women who are between 15 and 44 years old. Also referred to as reproductive ages.
Children
All persons under 18 years old, excluding people who maintain
households, families, or subfamilies as a reference person or spouse.
College enrollment
Persons enrolled in at least one class for which credit would be applied toward a degree at a two year or four year college, university, or professional school. Individuals do not need to be working toward a degree, however, to be considered enrolled.
College graduates
Persons who have received a bachelor's degree, master's degree, professional school degree, or doctorate degree.
Country of origin
The country in which a person was born.
Crude birth rate
Number of births per 1,000 people in the population.
Current Population Survey
A monthly survey of about 57,000 households to collect
nationally representative data on employment, income, demographic characteristics,
education, and household and family structure. (See also sources of
data page.)
Death rate
The number of deaths per 1,000 population in a given year. Age-specific death rates are usually expressed per 100,000 population.
Domestic migrant
A person who moves to a new residence within the United States.
Dropout rate
Calculated as the proportion of 18- to 24-year-olds who are not enrolled at a regular school and are not high school graduates.
Dual-earner households
Married-couple households in which both husband and wife are
employed.
Educational attainment
The highest level of education a person has completed. Note: The questionnaire item for educational attainment was changed in 1992, so data prior to 1992 may not be strictly comparable to data from later years.
Ethnicity
See Hispanic origin.
Federal Election Commission
An independent regulatory agency created by Congress in 1975 to disclose campaign finance information, to enforce the provisions of the law such as the limits and prohibitions on contributions, and to oversee the public funding of presidential elections.
Fertility
The actual reproductive performance of an individual, a couple, a group, or a population.
Foreign-born
Individuals who were not born in the United States. (See also native.)
Full-time (Worker)
Person who
worked 35 hours or more per week in the year prior to the survey, and worked for at least
50 weeks of the year (paid vacation and sick leave are included as work).
Generation X
Loosely defined as people born during the period following the baby boom (from 1965 to the late 1970s) marked by a rapid decline in fertility rates in the United States.
Group quarters
Noninstitutional living
arrangements for groups not living in conventional housing units or for groups living in
housing units containing 10 or more unrelated people.
High school dropouts
In most tables shown here, high school dropouts are defined as persons ages 25 or older who have not received a high school diploma or equivalent.
High school graduates
Individuals who have completed the 12th grade, or received a GED or high school diploma.
Hispanic origin
Refers to those who identify themselves as Mexican-American, Chicano, Mexican, Puerto Rican,
Cuban, Central or South American, or other Hispanic. Persons of
Hispanic origin can be of any race.
Household
Consists of all the people who occupy a housing
unit. A housing unit includes any separate living quarters in which the occupants live together and share meals.
Household income
The combined pre-tax income of each person in the household who is 15 years old or over. This measure refers to income reported for the year prior to the survey.
Householder
The person (or one of the people) in
whose name the housing unit is owned or rented or, if there is no such person, any adult
member excluding roomers, boarders, or paid employees. In a married-couple household, the
householder may be either the husband or the wife.
Immigrant
A person who moves to a new country to take up permanent residence there.
Immigration
The process of entering a new country to establish permanent residence.
Infant mortality rate
The number of deaths of infants under age 1 per 1,000 live births in a given year.
Labor force participation
Measure of survey respondents who were employed or unemployed as civilians during the survey week.
Life expectancy
The average number of additional years a person can expect to
live if current mortality trends continue.
Lowest-, middle-, and highest-series
Series of assumptions about fertility, mortality, and migration that the Census Bureau makes in producing population projections. The lowest- and highest-series projections are presented to show a degree of uncertainty around the central series.
Marital status
Classifications include the never married,
married, widowed, and divorced. A person is classified as married only if he or she resides with
a spouse in the same household. A "previously married" category is sometimes
used to combine those who are widowed or divorced.
Married couple
A husband and wife enumerated as members
of the same household.
Median
The value that divides the distribution exactly in half. For example, in the western region of the United States, the annual median household income in 1998 was $40,983. This means that exactly one half of the households had annual incomes greater than $40,983 and one half of the households had annual incomes less than $40,983.
Medicare
A federal program created in 1965 that covers the premiums for hospitalization, physician services, and other selected health services.
Metropolitan areas
Urban areas with a minimum population of 50,000.
Minorities
All racial and ethnic groups other than non-Hispanic whites in the United States.
Mortality rate
See death rate.
National Nursing Home Survey
A national sample survey of nursing home residents and staff, conducted in 1973, 1974, 1977, 1985, 1995 and 1997.
Native
Individuals born in the United States. (See also foreign-born.)
Nursery school
A group or class that provides educational experiences for children during the years preceding kindergarten. It includes instruction as an integral part of its program. This does not include private homes in which custodial care is provided.
Older population
People ages 65 or older.
Personal earnings
Includes the combination of pre-tax money
wage or salary income and net income from self-employment.
Persons per household
Calculated by dividing the number of
people residing in households by the number of households. People residing in group
quarters are excluded from the numerator.
Poverty
Defined based on money income before taxes; does not include capital gains and non-cash benefits (such as food stamps). Poverty is not defined for people in military barracks or institutional group quarters, or for unrelated individuals under age 15 (such as foster children).
Poverty thresholds
Used by the Census Bureau to determine who is poor. Poverty thresholds vary by family size and are updated annually for inflation using the Consumer Price Index. However, they do not take into account geographic differences in cost of living.
Private school
An educational institution that is operated by religious bodies or other private control. (See also
public school.)
Public school
An educational institution that is operated by publicly elected or appointed school officials and supported by public funds. (See also
private school.)
Race
Classification of the population into five groups on the basis of
self-identified race: white; black; Asian or Pacific
Islander; American Indian, Eskimo, or Aleut; and other. Statistics are generally presented only for the first three of these
groups, which account for the majority of the U.S. population — white, black, and Asian.
Region
Geographic area of the United States.
The four major regional categories are the Northeast
(Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania,
Rhode Island, Vermont); Midwest (Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota,
Ohio, Missouri, Wisconsin, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota); West (Arizona, Alaska,
Colorado, California, Idaho, Hawaii, Montana, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Utah, Wyoming,
New Mexico); and South (Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma,
Tennessee, Texas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia).
Related children
Own children and all other children under 18 years in the
household who are related to the householder by birth, marriage, or adoption.
Reproductive age
The reproductive age span of women, assumed for statistical purposes to be 15 to 44 or 15 to 49 years of age.
Sample data
Data obtained through random selection from a portion of the entire population of the United States.
Social Security
A federal program created in 1935 that provides retirement income through old-age, disability, and survivors' benefits.
Total fertility rate
The average number of children that would be born alive to a woman (or group of women) during her lifetime if she were to pass through her childbearing years conforming to the age-specific fertility rates of a given year.
Voting-age population
The population ages 18 and older.
Working-age adults
People ages 18 to 64.
