So....trying to respond to the new world order that has been imposed on to us.In an effort to possibly aid our grant writing staff, I was looking into trying to address what appears to be some new guidance within the Department of Transportation where preference may be given to projects in locations where the birth rate & marriage rates are higher than the national average. I thought ACS table DP-02 might provide all the elements that I might need for this but now I'm not so sure and my Googling has let me down. What I had envisioned doing was having this information at the census tract level and then being able to present this back to users in map form where I have the rates for the census tract, but also for our county, the state, and national average.
Thoughts?..
Steve
Hi Steve - My read is that the new DOT guidance isn't yet sufficiently clear on what data are required. Official birth rates and marriage rates are typically calculated based on administrative data, not…
Dear Steve,
You probably will not be able to get the data you need from standard (B S D C) ACS tables at the tract level. One way to deal with the situation is to use PUMS data. With the PUMS data you will the age of children in single year increments so you should be able to determine some trends in birth rates for a geography. For marriages here are the ACS questions https://www.census.gov/acs/www/about/why-we-ask-each-question/marital/ There are the following PUMS variables MARHM (married last 12 months) Times married MARHT and MARHYP year last married.
You can get an estimate for births in the past from the age of the children in the household. So the data is on the ACS questionnaire. The problem is that the data is only available for PUMAs (population >100,000). There are also question on migration. your current address and Where did you live 1 year ago see https://www.census.gov/data/developers/data-sets/acs-migration-flows.html for migration questions and tables. PUMS variable MIG and MIGPUMA. Read up on the PEP (Population Estimated Program) so see how births/deaths/migration are factored in to get the current (intercensal) estimates.
If you want estimates for census tracts, I have a program that will do that. Contact me at info@dorerfoundation.org. If you are from a 501(c)(3) or government entity consults are free.
Best,
Dave Dorer