2020 Census Demographic and Housing Characteristics File DHC
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While year-to-year movements fluctuate with economic cycles and regional labor market conditions, the long-term pattern shows more residents leaving Iowa for other states than relocating into Iowa. In Iowa, domestic migration has remained a persistently lagging feature of Iowa’s population trends over the past three decades. Persistent outflows may signal that residents perceive greater economic opportunity elsewhere. Figure 9 in the appendix maps estimated fertility rates across the United States in 2025. Fertility rate measures the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime. Although natural growth partially rebounded in subsequent years, the recovery has been uneven and remains low compared to pre-pandemic norms.
- While some growth reflects demographic increase, a significant portion stems from changes in how the Census Bureau processes responses, particularly from individuals who identify as Hispanic and write in “some other race.”
- The demographic transformation is profoundly reshaping America’s core social institutions.
- Fertility rate measures the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime.
- The 1850 census required enumerators to separately classify “blacks,” “mulattos,” “black slaves,” and “mulatto slaves,” showing an obsession with categorizing mixed-race individuals within slavery’s context.
The share of unauthorized nonresidents is projected to decline from 3.4 percent today to 2.7 percent by the 2060s. Figure 6 shows that immigrants’ population share is projected to increase in the future. Panel C shows that non-white immigrants will continue to outnumber white immigrants. Panel B shows that after accounting for additional education acquired after immigrating into the United States, the share of college and non-college immigrants are projected to be similar. After the recent immigration surge passes, annual net immigration is projected to be about 0.3 percent of the population.
In the short term, slower immigration could ease population growth in some fast-growing areas but could also tighten labor markets, especially in industries and regions that rely heavily on immigrant workers. But from July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025, net immigration in the U.S. fell sharply compared with prior years, dramatically slowing population gains, according to new data from the U.S. Group quarters are defined as places where people live or stay in a group living arrangement that is owned or managed by organizations providing housing or services for the residents. Many of the housing data are crossed by other demographic characteristics, such as age or race of the householder, or the presence of children or size of the household. Households are defined as all the people living in a housing unit, including people living alone or in families.
The increase in underrepresented graduates continues a trend seen since WICHE started issuing projections in the late 1990s, the authors noted. By far the largest increases will be in multiracial high school graduates, with that group’s ranks projected to nearly double from 2023 levels by 2034. Percent changes from 2023 in public high school graduates by ethnicity and race Hispanic graduates are expected to increase steadily from 2023 levels through the next decade and a half, with their numbers growing 16% by 2041. The WICHE paper projects that the number of White, Black, and American Indian and Alaska Native public high school graduates will all decline between 2023 and 2041. Future cohorts of high school graduates will vary by their ethnic and racial makeup as well.
In contrast, only 33% of individuals earning under $25,000 view estate planning as ‘very important’. Understanding these demographic disparities sheds light on why some Americans prioritize estate planning while others put it off. Older generations, wealthier households, and men tend to be more prepared, while younger adults, lower-income individuals, and women lag behind. The sentencing differences were less pronounced when the analyses focused solely on cases in which a sentence of imprisonment was imposed, which comprise 94 percent of all cases sentenced during the five-year study period.
Total population change reflects the combined effect of three distinct components that respond differently to economic conditions, policy changes, and long-term demographic trends. Figure 1 visualizes Iowa’s annual population growth since 1991 according to the Census Bureau’s population estimate data. As foreign migration flows moderated in 2025 mostly due to factors outside the state’s control, overall population growth returned closer to norms seen in the late 90s and late 2010s. The latest print also follows strong five-digit gains observed in 2023 and 2024, which were driven largely by elevated levels of net foreign migration. Roster Automation is a new system upgrade that will read a standardized form, identify necessary changes, and update the demographic system.
Determine Data Availability for a Specific Geography
Figure 5 shows net immigration rates by education and race and a decomposition of immigrants by legal status. When fertility rates are below the population replacement level, immigration can make up the shortfall to keep population growth positive. Finally, Figure 4’s Panel C shows that college-educated individuals have lower mortality rates. Panel B shows that women currently have lower mortality rates than men with the differential expected to persist over time. Figure 4’s Panel A shows that compared to whites, blacks have higher mortality rates.
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More generations under one roof
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Across the U.S., 38 states are expected to experience declines — while 12 states and Washington, D.C., will actually see increases. The authors reference the often-invoked concept of a demographic cliff, pointing out that it might overdramatize demographic the changes to come. Described by the report authors as “broad and substantial,” the estimated decline in graduates largely depends on past years’ births, how quickly students progress through high school and earn diplomas, as well as migration and mortality patterns.
Across all demographics, the biggest barrier to getting off the couch wasn’t the movies themselves. Population declines tied to migration slowdowns can reduce economic activity by hundreds of millions of dollars, whereas improved demographic competitiveness could generate significant economic gains. Iowa’s weaker performance in both domestic and international migration increases the risk of slower workforce growth and reduced economic expansion compared with neighboring states facing similar conditions. Compared to national and regional peers, Iowa’s demographic competitiveness has deteriorated, particularly in migration-driven population expansion. The state declined further to 11th in 2025 as foreign migration slowed nationwide.
The shift to self-identification in 1960 marked a pivotal moment, transferring racial definition power from the state to individuals. The 1850 census required enumerators to separately classify “blacks,” “mulattos,” “black slaves,” and “mulatto slaves,” showing an obsession with categorizing mixed-race individuals within slavery’s context. House of Representatives, representing approximately 32% of the nation’s 435 districts. Instead, the nation moves toward racial and ethnic plurality, where non-Hispanic whites remain the largest single group but lack a majority share, according to Census Bureau projections. No single minority group is expected to become an outright majority nationally. In the United States, this specifically means areas where fewer than 50% of residents are non-Hispanic whites.
(Read more about the religion of immigrants to the U.S. in our recent report “The Religious Composition of the World’s Migrants.”) Foreign-born Hindus and Buddhists most often were born in the Asia-Pacific region, while Muslim immigrants’ regions of origin are more varied. So does the country’s religiously unaffiliated population.
Births have trended gradually downward, falling from more than 41,000 annually in the mid-2000s to 36,470 in 2025. This steady cushion produced annual net births commonly exceeding 9,000, reaching a peak of 13,600 in 2007. Unlike migration, which can fluctuate with policy or labor market conditions, natural increase reflects the state’s underlying demographic growth via its native population. Net domestic migration does not appear in figure 2 for any year with negative flows, like 2025, as it does not contribute to population growth in those years. As of 2025, foreign migration generated roughly two-thirds of total net positive population change.
Meanwhile, rural areas will slightly increase their share of 12th graders, from 15% to 16%, while cities’ share will drop from 31% to 29%, per WICHE’s projections. Current and projected shares of high school graduates by locale type As such, it's worth noting the areas within their states from which high school graduates hail. Some states can have declining graduate populations even as the share of high school students who finish their diplomas increase, he said. All of those numbers are based largely on birth rates and demographic changes, Lane noted.
Increases in net immigration each year would cumulatively increase the number of workers. One potential way of preventing the decline in the worker-retiree ratio is to increase annual immigration levels. Indeed, worker transitions into the older group are so large that the increase in workers (blue line) is smaller than net immigration of workers (yellow line). Panel A of Figure 10 shows that younger (non-adult generations) are smaller than the “echo-boomers,” consistent with recent declines in U.S. fertility rates. Panel A of the Figure shows that births-plus-immigration will dominate deaths-plus-emigration through the next few decades but the strength of the former relative to the latter will weaken. Population growth depends on the relative strengths of factors that add people (births and immigration) relative to those that remove people (deaths and emigration) from the resident population.
Meanwhile, nearly a fifth of all countries and areas, including China, Italy, the Republic of Korea and Spain, now have “ultra-low fertility”, with fewer than 1.4 live births per woman over a lifetime. The world’s overall fertility rates are dropping, with women having one child fewer on average than they did around 1990. It will then fall to around 10.2 billion, which is 700 million lower than expected a decade ago. The global population reached nearly 8.2 billion by mid-2024 and is expected to grow by another two billion over the next 60 years, peaking at around 10.3 billion in the mid-2080s. In many lower-income nations, especially across Africa, rural populations are expected to remain substantial for years to come, even as cities continue to expand. Today, that share has fallen to roughly 43%, with urban residents now accounting for the majority of humanity.