Social Explorer is at the USA Science and Engineering Festival in DC this weekend.  We’re glad to be back at the sociology booth, organized and hosted by the American Sociological Association.

With help from the Obamas, Justin Bieber, Nemo and Harry Potter, we investigate how American Families have changed over the past fifty years.  Come on down to our booth (#734) to explore sociology to try our activity:

Science of the Modern Family: Using Sociology to explore how kids and their families live today

In the New York Times article “For Most, Choice of Stay-at-Home Motherhood Is Far From a Luxury.” Susan Saulny examines the realities of balancing motherhood and career in today’s economy and work world.  With a debate over Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen’s comment on Ann Romney’s choice to not work swirling in the news, Saulny discusses the actual demographic profile of stay-at-home mothers.  She cites census data and analysis from Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge:

Stay-at-home mothers are younger, less educated and more likely to be Hispanic than they were in previous generations, and perhaps have a more traditional view of family and more limited job skills than other women these days, according to a Census Bureau report that analyzed changes in stay-at-home motherhood from 1969 to 2009. Eighteen percent of stay-at-home mothers lack a high school degree, compared with 7 percent of women in the work force. And black women were about half as likely as white women to be stay-at-home mothers.

Across the country, 70 percent of married women over the age of 25 with children work outside the home. The median income of those households is about $87,700, compared with $64,000 for households where the mother stays at home, according to an analysis by Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociologist at Queens College of the City University of New York. “The biggest difference is education,” he said.

Click here to read the full article.

Tim Tebow in New York by artist Janet Hamlin (Newsday)

On this Passover and Easter weekend, football enthusiasts may be celebrating another holiday–the arrival of Tim Tebow.  In her Newsday op-ed “Tim Tebow in the secular city,” Hofstra religion Professor Julie Byrne explains that prayerful Tebow might fit right into his new town.

Tebow and the Jets — how’s that going to fly?

When it became public that Denver Broncos quarterback and Christian poster boy Tim Tebow was coming to New York, that was the big question.

How will it fly for a transplant from the conservative Christian heartland to play for a team in the world center of religious pluralism? For someone who doesn’t take the Lord’s name in vain to work for famous cusser Rex Ryan? For someone who abstains from sex before marriage to hang with randy Jets teammates?

It will fly just fine.

In addition to not being the first publicly religious sports star, Tim Tebow is moving to a city that is actually more religious than many would think, as Byrne explains using Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge’s analysis:

While New York has a reputation for godlessness, both city and state actually have higher rates of membership in organized religion than the country as a whole. In 2000, the proportion of state residents who belonged to some religious body was 76 percent — compared with 61 percent in the United States as a whole — according to an analysis by Queens College sociologist Andrew Beveridge. Even higher numbers specifically for the tristate region put it in the top 9 percent of urban areas in terms of religiosity, ahead of Salt Lake City and Little Rock.

Explore the religion demography yourself using Social Explorer’s maps and reports of InfoGroup – American Church Lists data.

In the New York Times article, “Population Growth in New York City Is Outpacing 2010 Census, 2011 Estimates Show,” Sam Roberts examines recent demographic trends in the city.  For New York, population growth levels almost match those from 20 years ago–the 1990s are back.

New York City gained nearly 70,000 residents in the 15 months ended July 1, 2011, almost matching the growth of the 1990s, when an influx of foreigners set annual records, according to census estimates released on Wednesday.

The apparent population rebound resulted from a combination of continued immigration and higher birthrates among the newcomers, along with fewer New Yorkers leaving the city.

The article cites Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge, “Based upon this new round of estimates, it appears that New York City has returned to quite robust growth…the demographic effects of the financial crisis may be starting to wane.”

According to the newly released 2011 Census estimates (based on growth between April 1, 2010 and July 1, 2011):

• NYC grew by 69,777, to a total population 8,244,910
• Brooklyn and Queens had the most population growth (28,000 and 17,000 respectively)
• City growth accounted for 80 percent of the state’s growth

Click here to read the full article.

For the latest on a contested primary election in New York City’s upper Manhattan congressional district, check out the Capital New York article, “Adriano Espaillat, Charlie Rangel, and the coalition-fracturing primary neither of them wanted.”  The story details the demographics of the district and the impact of the new district lines on the communities and candidates.  It also cites Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge as Mr. CVAP.

The Hispanic community in the new district contains a sizable immigrant population, which means that a number of the Hispanic residents—even those who are part of the voting-age population—aren’t citizens, and therefore aren’t eligible to vote.

The Citizen Voting Age Population (or CVAP) for the district is just under 45 percent, according to estimates from Andrew Beveridge, a redistricting expert (and self-proclaimed “Mr. CVAP”). The black CVAP, according to Beveridge, is just over 34 percent, and the white CVAP is about 17 percent.

Also, this week, the Census Bureau released its 1940 individual records.  (Census records over 72 years old are made public.)  The Bergen Record article “Data Will be a Boon for History Buffs,” details the release’s significance to genealogy, data and history enthusiasts, and cites Beveridge on access to this data.

The release of questionnaires will provide the most detail to date of life at that time, experts say. While reports for towns, counties and states were initially released in 1942, the individual census forms can help people track family members or provide a clearer picture of what a town or neighborhood was like 72 years ago.

“Because of the massive advances in computer technology and data analysis, we’ll be able to see lots more things about the data than people did in 1942,” said Andrew Beveridge, a professor of sociology at Queens College in New York.

That detail will include who lived on which streets, where immigrant groups clustered and who was unemployed.

Stay tuned to the blog for more Social Explorer in the news.

Starting on Wednesday, March 28, Social Explorer will be served from the Amazon Cloud through Amazon Web Services. We have run extensive testing and expect that most users will not even notice the change. If you experience any access or other issues, please let us know at support@socialexplorer.com immediately.

This move is necessary as we begin to add world wide data and attract world wide users. It will also support our soon-to-launch Social Explorer 2.0.

We say hello to Amazon Web Services, as we improve the way we bring you all of our resources and tools.

See you in the cloud!

While Irish eyes are smiling on St. Patrick’s Day, many Finns are already celebrating St. Urho’s Day.  The holiday was first celebrated in Minnesota on March 16th, which happens to be just before St. Patrick’s Day.

It honors the legendary Urho, the patron saint of vineyard workers.  As the story goes, he saved the grape crop from a grasshopper infestation with his horrible breath as he yelled, “Heinäsirkka, heinäsirkka, mene täältä hiiteen!”  (Grasshopper, grasshopper, go away!)

Social Explorer has data throughout the years on a multitude of ancestries, including the Finnish.

• Soon after the first St. Urho’s Day was celebrated, the 1960 census reported that there were 240,827 people in the US born in Finland, representing 0.1 percent of the total population.
• Over 15 percent of them resided in Minnesota, where St. Urho celebrations first originated.
• According to the 2010 American Community Survey, there are now 647,697 residents of Finnish ancestry, making up about 0.2 percent of the total population.

Some St. Urho’s Day revelers dress up as grasshoppers and grapes to celebrate.  Social Explorer makes its data festive with purples and greens in the map below.  As you can see, Finns are especially concentrated in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin.  Explore the map to see where you should plan your next St. Urho’s Day outing, or if you are a grasshopper, where to avoid.

Map of Finnish Residents in the US (2006-10 Census)

Users please sign in for full access to maps and data.

Happy St. Urho’s Day!

The once-a-decade redistricting process is heating up in New York as deadlines approach and the legislature, governor, advocacy groups, public and the federal courts become more involved.  There was a court hearing on Monday on what map looked like.

On Monday, magistrate judge Roanne Mann held a public hearing.  Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge testified on behalf of the Center for Law and Social Justice and Newman Ferrara LLP.  Based on decades of demographic experience, including work as a consultant and expert witness in redistricting cases, Beveridge analyzed data from the various plans and the changing demographics of New York.

Since the court hearing, Judge Mann put forth her own plan.  Notably, it includes a new Asian-majority district in Queens, with 39.1 percent of the district.  This district was drawn in response to the major population changes in the area (where over 500,000 Asians reside) and around the city (32 percent growth).

New York 1 produced a story on this proposed district, and included an interview with Beveridge.

For more on the latest New York State redistricting news, check out the New York Times series Unmapped.

In his latest op-ed “Santorum’s Gospel of Inequality,” New York Times columnist Charles Blow takes on the presidential candidate’s public comments about how income inequality is good for society.

Blow writes that “for Santorum to champion income inequality in Detroit, of all places, is still incredibly tone-deaf.”  He cites data from Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge in his discussion.

Detroit has the highest poverty rate of any big city in America, according to data provided by Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College. Among the more than 70 cities with populations over 250,000, Detroit’s poverty rate topped the list at a whopping 37.6 percent, more than twice the national poverty rate. And according to the Census Bureau, median household income in Detroit from 2006-10 was just $28,357, which was only 55 percent of the overall U.S. median household income over that time.

Beveridge also provided data for a list of the most impoverished cities in America, featured in the article.

Click here to read the rest of the op-ed and see the full list.

In New York City, a large number of first generation children from wealthy families are going to public schools, even though their parents could afford private school.  In the New York Times article “Affluent, Born Abroad and Choosing New York’s Public Schools,” Kirk Semple examines the trend in school choice among foreign-born parents.  The article features census data and analysis from Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge and Susan Weber-Stoger.

In New York, the affluent typically send their children to private schools. But not the foreign-born affluent. In a divergence, a large majority of wealthy foreign-born New Yorkers are sending their children to public schools, according to an analysis of census data.

There are roughly 15,500 households in the city with school-age children where the total income is at least $150,000 and both parents were born abroad. Of those, about 10,500, or 68 percent, use only the public schools, the data show.

That is nearly double the rate of American-born parents in the city in the same income bracket.

In the United States over all, there is almost no difference between the two groups, apparently because wealthy people outside of urban areas are much more likely to show allegiance to the public schools. Nationally, 73 percent of native-born couples and 76 percent of foreign-born couples send their children only to public school, according to the data, which was analyzed by Andrew A. Beveridge and Susan Weber-Stoger, demographers at Queens College.

The article goes on to detail the motivations behind this trend in school choices, such as seeking ethnic and economic diversity, living in neighborhoods with better public schools and avoiding private school tuition.

Click here to read the whole story.