SSRIC
Teaching Resources Depository
Exploring the US Census
Eugene Turner, California State University, Northridge
Exercise
4 -- Population Growth
Databases:
bgatsp.por; CACOsp.por
In this exercise
you will work with some of the methods that portray changes in the population.
Think about what each of these contributes to our understanding of change.
Familiarize yourself
with the location of some of the census tracts in the Burbank and Glendale area
by consulting the map (Figure 4) in the module.
- Absolute
and Percentage Change
- Select non-Hispanic
whites and two of the following ethnic groups by census tract for either
Burbank or for Glendale: non-Hispanic white
black
Chinese
Filipino
Korean
Mexican origin
Salvadoran origin
- Compute
the absolute and percentage change in ethnic persons between 1980 and
1990 for the three groups in the city as a whole and in all tracts. What
are the trends of change of these groups for the city? What do you think
happened to produce these trends?
- Examine
the tracts which do not show the ethnic change trends found for the city
as a whole. Identify these tracts and describe the distinctive trends
for them. What do you think may be different about these tracts to result
in their different trends? What evidence would you need to determine if
your ideas are correct?
- Births
Select the California Dept. of Finance data extract, CACO.
- Compute the
1990 - 1997 crude birth rate and crude death rate for California counties.
Sort the counties and determine which have very high and very low birth
rates. Are there differences between metropolitan and rural counties or
between northern and southern California?
- Determine
which counties gained or lost population in the 1990 - 1997 period.
Create a map of net domestic migration by county. Are any patterns evident
in counties that gained or lost population?
- Compute the
percentage of population growth due to net migration for each of the California
counties. Make a scattergram of birth rates versus net migration to see
if those counties with a large increase in migrants also are having a greater
proportion of births.