Percent population foreign born by place of birth

Hi. I'd like to calculate (for a given location) the percentage of the total population that is born in a given country. These counts are available in table B05006 (PLACE OF BIRTH FOR THE FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES). The universe for this table is not total population, but Foreign-born population excluding population born at sea.

So to have total population as a denominator, I will need to pull total population from another table, such as B05001 (NATIVITY AND CITIZENSHIP STATUS IN THE UNITED STATES). Is this okay to do?

Additional information that may be helpful:

In B05001, the sum of U.S. citizen by naturalization and Not a U.S. Citizen should equal the total foreign born population, the universe of B05006.

I compared the Total figure from B05006 with the sum of these two variables from B05001, to see if they were the same for all geographies. The results are that for 99.9% of geographies, these amounts are the same. For about 199 geographies (out of about 178,000), the values are different. At the national level, there is a difference of 491 out of 41.7 million. So they're pretty close.

Parents
  • Pulling the denominator from b05001 seems okay to do. What are the universes of b05006, b05001. Why not use the total population as the denominator? Like b01003. What in general are the differences among the 199 geographies that are not the same. Pretty close or very different?
  • The universe of B05006 is "Foreign-born population excluding population born at sea". For B05001, it's "Total population in the United States". The total population denominator from B05001 and B01003 are identical; I just liked B05001 because it had indicators that allowed for some comparison with B05006.

    The differences among the 199 geographies are not great. As mentioned, for the US, it's a difference of 491 out of 41.7 million. The largest percentage difference is ZCTA 12577; B05001 has a value of 87, B05006 has 70.
Reply
  • The universe of B05006 is "Foreign-born population excluding population born at sea". For B05001, it's "Total population in the United States". The total population denominator from B05001 and B01003 are identical; I just liked B05001 because it had indicators that allowed for some comparison with B05006.

    The differences among the 199 geographies are not great. As mentioned, for the US, it's a difference of 491 out of 41.7 million. The largest percentage difference is ZCTA 12577; B05001 has a value of 87, B05006 has 70.
Children