Peering through the Window of the 2010 Census

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Citation

Johnson, James H., Jr. & Kasarda, John D. (2011). Peering through the Window of the 2010 Census. The Boule Journal, 75(2), 13-24.

Abstract

By all indications, Census 2010 went off without a hitch. Nearly three-fourths of U.S. households reportedly returned their completed questionnaires on or before April 1 – the official Census Day – roughly the same percentage as in 2000 (Williams 2010). Field operations to collect data from nonresponders to the mail questionnaire and internal evaluations of the quality of the data were completed by mid-October 2010, and most of the local census offices opened to facilitate the count were reportedly closed by mid-November. Tallies of the total population by state – the so-called apportionment file – were sent to the President of the United States on or before December 31, 2010. These data will be used to “determine how many representatives each state will have in the 113th Congress that will be elected in November 2012” (Estersohn 2010). Between 2011 and 2013, Census 2010 data for the U.S. population, disaggregated by detailed demographic characteristics and at various geographical levels, will be released (PRB 2010). Needless to say, academic and market researchers as well as politicians, policy analysts and a broad array of interest groups eagerly anticipate the early releases of the data. We believe that clues already exist regarding the nature, magnitude and direction of the major demographic shifts of the past decade. More specifically, there are, in our view, six trends that Census 2010 will likely confirm with hard and reliable data. In this paper, we describe these emergent trends and discuss their implications for business, consumer markets and the nation’s competitiveness in the global marketplace. Because the specific population shifts discussed here will dramatically transform all of the nation’s social, economic and political institutions, we refer to them collectively as disruptive demographic trends – borrowing and broadening the application of a term coined by MIT professor Joseph Coughlin.

Reference Type

Journal Article

Year Published

2011

Journal Title

The Boule Journal

Author(s)

Johnson, James H., Jr.
Kasarda, John D.