Skip to content


PA is Old and Sedentary – Or Tried and True?

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or receive new posts by e-mail. Thanks for visiting!

New data from the 2007 American Community Survey  was released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. The good folks of the Pennsylvania State Data Center picked out the goodies and wrote up a research brief [pdf].

The interesting tidbits:

  1. Pennsylvania ranks 4th in the nation in the proportion of its households with at least one member aged 65 or over (27% of all households)
  2. We also rank 4th in the nation in the proportion of its native-born residents who were born in the state (79%).
Cane photo by Flickr user Toni To

By Flickr user Toni To, under a Creative Commons license.

On this second point, I called the Data Center for clarification. They helpfully explained that “native-born residents” refers to U.S.-born residents. So, among the current residents of Pennsylvania who are natural-born citizens (born anywhere in the United States or its territories), 79% were born in this state (as opposed to, say, in Arizona, Maryland, Puerto Rico, or a military base abroad).

(I’m concerned that I’m setting an ageist tone to this blog—which is not my intention. )

What is your take on the meaning of these new statistics?

Related posts:

  1. Lancaster County population tops half a million
  2. 1.2 Million PA Trees Lopped Down for Christmas
  3. Lancaster County births in 2008
  4. Lancaster City income plummeted 15% BEFORE the crash

Posted in Data & Trends.


2 Responses

Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.

  1. Anne says

    Thanks for the link to the research brief Daniel – I’ve been looking for info like this.
    Cheers,
    Anne

  2. Brian says

    As with most things, it’s probably a little from column A (We Love it Here!) and a little from column B (Great Granpappy was born here, Granpappy was born here, and I was born here!). I think we’ll start to see that statistic move a little towards more mobility as the “matures” start to leave us. I’d love to see regional statistics in regards to the state. In my case, I couldn’t WAIT to vacate NE PA, but I love it here in Lancaster.



Some HTML is OK

or, reply to this post via trackback.