US and California Compared

The join States enumerate is taken every ten years in order for the U. S. government to count exactly how legion(predicate) people live in the country to the go around of its abilities. Aside from taking the population, the census asks many other questions, such(prenominal) as the years of the persons living in a given over ho handlinghold, their race and ethnicity, the languages that be spoken at home, their facts of lifeal attainment level, and household income. These questions, when answered by the entire population, provide the government a sense of the composition and the needs of its people.Without this information, frequent services such as education, hospitals, health care, and social security washbowlnot be provided to all in need and therefore it is all- consequential(prenominal) selective information that deserves our careful exami community. For my term paper, I have decided to equality the information of the state of calcium to the United States of America t o discover how similar or disparate the sets of data whitethorn be. I would venture whatever of these data to be similar, such as age distribution, callable to the circumstance that atomic number 20 is a relatively large state with a large enough population that it would serve as a pretty good sample of the entire nation.However, I would expect to see differences in factors such as race and ethnicity and the languages spoken at home, because atomic number 20 has a relatively larger Hispanic and Asian population than most other states in the US. Also, the income level of calcium will be slightly higher(prenominal) than the nation due to the existence of both large metropolitan cities in the state. The paper takes a careful explore at the various socio-demographic varyings that are taken by the United States Census in order to compare the state of California to the nation as a whole.The first obvious step in my analytic thinking is to look at some(prenominal) populations co unted by the 1990 United States census. The population of the United States is estimated to be 248,709,873 and California is estimated to be 29,760,021. This data is important to this paper because when making comparisons between the two geographic locations, I will use percentages taken from the actual data given in the census divided by the hit populations. This way, the comparisons are scaled in relation to one another and it is easier to try out and to make comparisons. The first demographic variable that I will examine is the age distribution between the two areas.The age distribution given by the population age pyramid (Graph 1) show that both are quite similar, with a pyramid-like trope starting from age 25 to 80+, with the large base of the pyramid beginning at age 25. From age 0 to 24, there is an overall tapering in from the base of the pyramid above as the ages decrease, indicating a fewer number of people age 0 through 24. It means that the largest number of persons in both regions is between the ages of 25 and 34 in 1990. This implies that there were a larger number of births in the 1950s and 1960s than in the 1970s and 1980s.This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that the baby-boom children had reached reproductive confront in their lives and gave birth to many babies in the 50s and 60s. There is also relatively fewer people aged 45 to 80+. The upper narrow upper region of the graph, ages 65 and up, can be explained by the fact that the life expectancy in the United States is around 70 years old and it is internal to see a tapering off of the population at these ages. However, the age group from 45 to 64 is also quite narrow. This is most likely due to the fact that these are the people who fought in initiation War II.Looking at the graph, the only noticeable difference between the two regions is that California has a relatively fewer number of people aged 10 through 19. This could be due to many economic, social, and physical facto rs in the 1970s that affected California births, but not the entire nation. I would augur that since children of the baby-boomers (ages 25 to 34) have now reached reproductive stage, the census 2000 would show that the base of the graph would continue to age a little bit wider, from babies being born in the 1990s. The second demographic variable I will focus on is the racial composition of California and the United States.Graph 2 shows the percentages of the total population, which fall under the five racial categories 1. White 2. Black 3. American Indian, Eskimo, or Aleut 4. Asian or Pacific Islander and 5. Other. It is important to flavor that people of Hispanic origin are mainly categorized as either White or Other, depending on how each individual has chosen to categorize him or herself. The social class, Other, also include people who are mixed, such as Mulatto, Creole, and Mestizo. The breakdown of the races are pretty similar, as can be seen by the graph with Whites being the overwhelming majority of the total population for both regions.However, it whitethorn be interesting to note that the origins of the people who make up the White category for the two regions may be quite different. For the United States, the composition of the people who make up the White category are mostly of European origin. The origin of people who make up the White category for California also include many people of European origin, but also many of Hispanic origin. This is due to the fact that California shares the border with Mexico and therefore would have a larger Mexican or Hispanic population.Also due to the large Mexican and Latino population, the Other category for California is almost 10% larger than for the United States. The lower Black population in California can be attributed to the fact that the majority of Blacks in this country are concentrated in the southern states of the US, such as Alabama, meridian the composition for the nation, but not for Californ ia. Lastly, the Asian and Pacific Islander category is almost 8% higher in California because many Asians track down to be concentrated on the west coast of the US. The third base socio-demographic variable I will examine is language spoken at home.The first thing to note on Graph 3 is that English is spoken in the majority of homes both in California and the United States. The population speaking languages other than English at home is higher in California due to the racial composition examined above. The higher Asian/Pacific Islander and Latino concentration has increase this California percentage to twice that of the US. Of these other languages, the existence of Spanish spoken in homes is to a greater extent than 10 percent higher in California than in the rest of the nation. Subsequently, the English at home dependant on(p) will be smaller in percentage comparison for California.This type of data is extremely important to the government because it raises issues such as the appropriateness of ESL programs, multilingual education, and domain services that must be provided to the public in many languages. Comparing two different regions such as California and the US may seem useless due to the similar data, but it is differences such as these that make the census all important(p) data that deserve our careful analysis. Educational Attainment is another variable I will analyze between the two regions. Graph 4 reveals that in the US, highschool graduates (including equivalency) make up the highest percentage of education attained.This is not surprising because formal education in the US is required for all children until the age of 14 through 18, depending on the state, and therefore it is expected that most children would finish high school. In California, people attendance some college without obtaining a degree make up the highest percentage. This implies that Californias students have a determination to affiance their education further than the n ational student. The higher percentage of Californians attending some college can be attributed to the proliferation of junior colleges in the state.The concern for California should lie in the fact that a higher percentage of children do not progress beyond the ninth grade than in the nation. This may be attributed to the large Spanish speaking population who are cushioned in schools by bilingual teachers during their elementary and secondary schooling years but are left to themselves in non-bilingual high schools to subsist on their own and as a result, drop out. Finally, the comparison of household income between California and the US shows that income levels for both regions are concentrated under $60,000 per year (Graph 5).In analyzing these data, I have taken the income data from the census and divided that figure with the total number of households, not the population, so that a direct comparison between the income of each households would be possible. In general, Californian s have higher income than the US as a whole. The 1990 Census shows that the median household income of California is $35,798. This figure is higher than the national median household income of $30,056. The data on the graph shows that the higher percentage of Californians earn incomes higher than $30,000.The higher income in California can be attributed to the two metropolitan areas of Los Angeles and San Francisco as mentioned earlier and additionally, to the recent boom of the computer and internet industry in Silicon Valley, which has increased the number of Californians earning higher wages. The different variables examined in this paper have revealed several demographic trends between California and the US as a whole. While the two regions share similar demographic profiles, several differences arise upon closer analysis of the data. Generally, California has a higher concentration of racial minorities.Thus, more families speak languages other than English at home. The data als o shows that a higher percentage of Californians pursue degrees in higher education than the national percentage. Since college graduatess and advanced degree holders tend to earn higher wages, the data for household income is consistent with the previous observation as more Californians are in the higher income bracket. It can then be concluded that California is more racially diverse than most other states, and that Californians tend to do better economically than the rest of the nation.This type of analysis would not have been possible without the United States Census, which I believe is an important tool that allows researchers to do their own analysis with the hard data that it provides. The different conclusions I have drawn from this paper clearly indicate a need for different public programs that are specifically designed for each individual state because the United States is not made up of a homogeneous group of people, but is composed of an exremely diverse group of indivi duals.