Pew Social & Demographic Trends

The Great Recession

Hard Times Have Hit Nearly Everyone —
And Hammered the Long-term Unemployed

22 Jul 10 Long term unemployment takes a heavy toll not just on people’s finances, but also on their emotional well-being and career prospects, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of workers who have lost jobs since the Great Recession began in December 2007. The long-term unemployed are more likely than the short-term unemployed to have lost income, lost contact with close friends, suffered strains in family relations, lost some self-respect and lost confidence in their career prospects.

But they're not the only ones hurt by the recession. A June 30, 2010, Pew Research report based on the same survey found that more than half (55%) of all adults in the labor force say they have suffered a spell of unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours or have become involuntary part-time workers since December, 2007. The Great Recession has also led to a new frugality in Americans' spending and borrowing habits; diminished expectations about their retirements and their children’s future; and a concern that it will take years for their family finances and house values to recover.

Latest Report: Attitudes, Experiences, and Demographics of Long-term Unemployed

Media, Race and Obama's First Year

27 Jul 10 The fallout from the firing of Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod and the one-year anniversary of the controversial arrest of African American Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., have put race back in the news. How much coverage do African Americans receive? What role did race play in coverage of the Obama Administration? A new study examining media coverage of African Americans in the first year of the Obama presidency offers answers.

Childlessness Up Among All Women;
Down Among Women with Advanced Degrees

25 Jun 10 Nearly one-in-five American women ends her childbearing years without having borne a child, compared with one-in-ten in the 1970s, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey. While childlessness has risen for all racial and ethnic groups, and most education levels, it has fallen over the past decade for women with advanced degrees. In 2008, 24% of women ages 40-44 with a master's, doctoral or professional degree were childless, a decline from 31% in 1994. However, the most educated women still are among the most likely never to have had a child.

Minorities and the Recession-Era
College Enrollment Boom

16 Jun 10The recession-era boom in the size of freshman classes at four-year colleges, community colleges and trade schools has been driven largely by a sharp increase in minority student enrollment. The 6 percent increase in freshman enrollment from fall 2007 to fall 2008 was the largest in 40 years, and almost three-quarters of it came from minority freshman enrollment growth. Freshman enrollment of Hispanics at postsecondary institutions grew by 15%, of blacks by 8%, Asians by 6% and whites by 3%.

Marrying Out: One-in-Seven New U.S. Marriages is Interracial or Interethnic

Interactive: Regional and State Rates
Report: Overview | PDF

4 June 10 A record 14.6% of all new marriages in the U.S in 2008 were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity from one another, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of new census data.

Of all newlyweds in 2008, 9% of whites, 16% of blacks, 26% of Hispanics and 31% of Asians married outside their race/ethnicity. Patterns also varied by region (intermarriage is most common in the West) and by gender.

Black male newlyweds "married out" at twice the rate of black female newlyweds, while Asian female newlyweds "married out" at twice the rates of Asian males. There were no gender differences among whites or Hispanics.

The New Demography of American Motherhood

6 May 10 Today’s mothers of newborns are older and better educated than their counterparts in 1990, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the National Center for Health Statistics and U.S. Census Bureau. They are less likely to be white and less likely to be married.

Births to teens have declined, while births to women ages 35 and older grew 64% between 1990 and 2008 and accounted for 14% of births in 2008. In 2008, a record 41% of U.S. births were to unmarried women. Just over half of births (53%) in 2008 were to white women, and a quarter (24%) were to Hispanic women. More than half of the mothers of newborns (54% in 2006) had at least some college education. One-in-four (24% in 2004) was foreign born.

The Typical Mother: There Isn't One

U.S. Birth Rate Decline Linked to Recession

6 Apr 10 Birth rates in the United States began to decline in 2008 after rising to their highest level in two decades, and the decrease appears to be linked to the recession, according to a Pew Research Center analysis based on fertility and economic data from the 25 states for which final 2008 birth numbers are available.

In 22 of these 25 states, the birth rate—the share of women of childbearing age who gave birth—declined or leveled off in 2008, compared with the previous year. There is a strong association between the magnitude of fertility change in 2008 across states and key economic indicators including changes in per capita income, housing prices and share of the working-age population that is employed across states.

The Return of the Multi-Generational Family Household

18 Mar 10 The multi-generational American family household is staging a comeback — driven in part by the job losses and home foreclosures of recent years, but more so by demographic changes that have been gathering steam for decades. As of 2008, a record 49 million Americans, or 16.1% of the total U.S. population, lived in such a household, up from 28 million, or 12.l% in 1980. Such households had been more common a century ago, but began to fall out of favor after World War II. Now they are coming back.

Confident, Connected and Open to Change

23 Feb 10 Generations, like people, have personalities, and Millennials – the American teens and twenty-somethings currently making the passage into adulthood – have begun to forge theirs: confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and receptive to new ideas and ways of living.

They are more ethnically and racially diverse than older adults. The Great Recession has set back their entry into the labor force, but they are more upbeat than their elders about their own economic futures and the overall state of the nation. And they are the first “always connected” generation, steeped in digital technology and social media.

QUIZ: How Millennial Are You?

GRAPHIC: Demographic portrait of four generations

Women, Men and the New Economics of Marriage

19 Jan 10 The institution of marriage has undergone significant changes in recent decades as women have outpaced men in education and earnings growth. These unequal gains have been accompanied by gender role reversals in both the spousal characteristics and the economic benefits of marriage.

A larger share of men in 2007, compared with their 1970 counterparts, are married to women whose education and income exceed their own. The reverse is true for women. In the past, marriage enhanced the economic status of women more than that of men. Now the economic gains associated with marriage are greater for men.

A Year After Obama’s Election

Blacks Upbeat about Black Progress, Prospects

12 Jan 10 Assessments about the state of black progress in America have improved more dramatically among blacks during the past two years than at any time in the past quarter century, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

Barack Obama’s election as the nation’s first black president appears to be the spur for this sharp rise in optimism, which also is reflected in the upbeat views of blacks on race relations, local community satisfaction and expectations for future black progress. In each of these realms, the perceptions of blacks have changed for the better over the past two years, despite a deep recession and jobless recovery that have hit blacks especially hard.

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Social & Demographic Trends is one of seven projects that make up the Pew Research Center.

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26 Jul 10 - Obama's Policies Seen as Better than Bush's for Improving the Economy

26 Jul 10 - Media, Race and Obama's First Year

19 Jul 10 - Ask the Expert

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7 Jul 10 - More Cell Phone Owners Use an App for That

22 Jun 10 - Public Sees a Future Full of Promise and Peril

17 Jun 10 - Obama More Popular Abroad than at Home, Global Image of U.S. Continues to Benefit

The Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends project studies behaviors and attitudes of Americans in key realms of their lives, including family, community, health, finance, work and leisure. The project explores these topics by combining original public opinion survey research with social, economic and demographic data analysis. Read more