Some Elections Are Demographically More Important Than Others

Since the Constitution requires that Congressional Districts be redrawn after each decennial census, the election just before the census data come out winds up laying the groundwork for districts for the following decade. As it turned out, the Republican Party won a lot of seats in 2010 and has been in the position of driving the redistricting bus in the majority of states that still leave that process to the governor and legislature. As the Associated Press notes:

Republicans romped last November, gaining 63 House seats to secure the majority, winning 11 governorships, including Ohio and Pennsylvania, and seizing control of the most state legislative seats they've held since 1928. The GOP is capitalizing on its across-the-board control in 26 states — governorship plus legislature — in the census-based drawing of a new political map that will be a decisive factor in the 2012 elections and beyond.Nearly half of the states have finished redrawing House lines based on population changes, although lawsuits and Justice Department reviews loom. The immediate post-election claims that the GOP could add 15 to 30 seats in the U.S. House through redistricting have proven unfounded, in large part because Republicans captured so many seats last November. Instead, the GOP has used the redistricting process to shore up its most vulnerable lawmakers, people like Ellmers and Farenthold."Redistricting starts with Republicans at a peak," said Tim Storey, an elections analyst with the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures. "They hold a solid majority of seats in the House. It's hard to gain much more."

The Demographics of Job Creation

One of the topics that keeps popping to the surface in the swirl of discussion around the debt ceiling and the deficit is: How do we create more jobs? More specifically, the observation is routinely made that Ronald Reagan was able as President to create jobs and reduce taxes at the same time. This of course ignores the fact that taxes actually rose several times during the Reagan administration before coming down, but setting that aside, Reagan was blessed by an unusually propitious age structure. He was the beneficiary of America's age dividend. The Baby Boomers blossomed during his presidency, providing a cohort of young workers (young = cheaper than older workers in most circumstances) without a large group of older people that the government had to pay for, and without a large group of younger dependents. During his administration from 1981-1989 the percent of the US population aged 15-29 was 27--higher than at any time since the end of WWII and it has not been that high since. The population aged 20-44 was 40 percent during his presidency--higher than at any time since the end of WWII and it has not been that high since.

Asian Immigrants in Jordan

The discussion over the past few months related to the Middle East has obviously been of the events generally known as the Arab spring, and surrounding that discussion has been the issue of whether or not the violence and conflict have roots in a youth bulge. A report today from the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, DC indirectly suggests that the youth bulge may not have been such a big issue after all. Here's why: An increasing fraction of the labor force in Jordan is composed of Sri Lankans and Filipinos (actually Filipinas--see below), rather than Arabs, who have traditionally made up the immigrant labor force. 

Unskilled and semi-skilled migrant workers from the Arab region have been filling labor shortages in Jordan for decades, shaping its labor market and sustaining its economy. Although Arab nationals still account for a majority of migrant workers in Jordan today, the migration flow to Jordan has changed in recent years with the growing importance of non-Arab migrants from Asia.

Jordan’s census data suggest that the non-Arab Asian population’s share of the total foreign population more than doubled from 7 percent in 1994 to 15 percent in 2004. Among economically active migrants, non-Arab Asians comprised an even larger share, reaching nearly 30 percent by 2004.1A significant proportion of this new migration flow from Asia comes from Sri Lanka and the Philippines, which together account for nearly a third of the total.

Media Demographics Follow the Boomers

The Economist this week has a good analysis of the changing demographics of the media, and what that means for people trying make a profit by aiming at different demographic groups. For a long time, the prime target audience was the 18-49 "demographic," but that is so yesterday.

The noisy disruption of media business models by the internet in the past decade has obscured a profound demographic transformation. Whether they are buying music, listening to the radio, reading newspapers or watching television, media consumers are ageing even more quickly than the overall population. Rather than trying to reverse this trend by attracting younger people, many companies are attempting to profit from the greying of media.

AARP Says that 50 is the New 65

The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) is launching a new advertising campaign in which they are emphasizing the value to marketers of the Baby Boom generation as it ages. Since the boomers are people born between 1946 and 1964, the youngest boomers are having their 47th birthday this year, while the oldest are turning 65. This bulging age cohort has created new markets in almost everything as they have moved through time, and the AARP obviously does not see this trend as ending anytime soon. 

AARP’s new marketing effort will promote the baby boom generation, as it ages, as a viable consumer target for advertisers. The campaign, which includes print and digital ads, will run in trade publications like Advertising Age starting Monday.

“Our sense is that we’ve reached a tipping point,” said Patricia Lippe Davis, the vice president for marketing at AARP media sales. “People are really recognizing the value of the audience that we speak to.”

The campaign is intended to reach what Ms. Davis calls “thought leaders,” senior marketing executives who tend to be middle-aged, and “media mavericks,” media planners and buyers who tend to be younger. She said she hoped it would debunk myths about older Americans.

Eastern European Immigrants Boost UK Economy

Voluntary migrants typically move to improve their own economic situation, and despite the fears about them in the receiving countries, the evidence generally supports the idea that they are a net economic gain to the host country. That was certainly the conclusion of a report released today in the United Kingdom by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research.

Between 2004 and 2009, an estimated 1.5 million people from eastern Europe came to the UK. It is thought 700,000 of them stayed, with half a million from Poland alone.

During the same period Britain's GDP grew by £98bn, or 7.7%, and the NIESR study says that a 5% share of the £98bn can be put down to the migrants.

Children Having Children in Yemen

Protests and the chance of some kind of regime change persist in Yemen, a country that has seen massive population increase over the past few decades, as I have noted previously. One of the reasons that 66 percent of Yemenis are under the age of 25 is that it is a country in which children are having children--women are married at a young age with the expectation that they will soon begin to bear children. USAID has been sponsoring a Safe Age at Marriage project to encourage a delay in marriage in countries like Yemen:

Yemen is one of 20 "hot spot" countries for child marriage, a conservative Muslim nation where a seventh of all girls are married by age 14 and nearly half by age 17. In rural districts, girls as young as 9 are often betrothed. Most "hot spot" countries are clustered in central Africa, with other pockets in Southeast Asia and Central America.

France Is Unhappy as Tunisian Refugees Move North

The upheavals in Tunisia and Libya have already produced tens of thousands of refugees, as I have already noted. Those going to Europe have mainly shown up in Italy, since that is the closest country and is the shortest trip across the Mediterranean. Recently, the Italian government has granted many of these people temporary residence status, which allows them to leave Italy and go to many of the other European countries. If you have been to Europe since the creation of the European Union you know that you are not asked for your passport as you go from one country to the next. You can travel freely throughout much of Europe once you get past that first gatekeeper. This has created some problems for France, according to the BBC:

Italy's decision to grant Tunisians 20,000 temporary residence permits, allowing free travel in the passport-free Schengen zone, has angered France.

Last week, French officials temporarily stopped trains with migrants crossing the border from Italy into France.

The decision sparked anger between Italy and France, with Italy accusing its neighbour of overstepping the treaty on border-free travel.

Celebrating Earth Day

April 22nd has been Earth Day for the past 41 years, with a focus on the sustainability of human existence on our planet. That speaks directly to the interaction of population and the environment. The emphasis has generally been more on the latter than the former, but they are clearly both very important. ABC News has a nice story on reducing your carbon footprint, keeping in mind that where you live will importantly determine the nature of your footprint, and what you can do about it.

My own involvement in Earth Day goes back to the very first one in 1970. As a PhD student in Demography at the University of California, Berkeley, I was invited to address what turned out to be a very large outdoor gathering on the campus of California State University, Fresno. My talk was "Who Lit the Fuse on the Population Bomb?" and of course the answer was "look in the mirror":

Demographic Divide in Arizona

Arizona has become notorious for its anti-immigrant attitude and legislation. However, The Economist notes that there is a real divide in Arizona on this issue and it cuts along geographic, and especially demographic lines. Maricopa County, in the middle of the state and where Phoenix is located, has one set of demographics, and is seen as being very different from Pima County, in the southern part of the state (albeit contiguous to Maricopa County) and where Tucson is located.

Midwestern snowbirds and others who flooded into Arizona mainly settled in Maricopa, making it politically dominant and distinct.

The differences start with the aesthetic. Middle-class houses in Phoenix tend to have lawns, whereas Tucson’s mostly have desert landscaping, with artful cacti and such. Thomas Volgy, a politics professor at the University of Arizona and former mayor of Tucson, says that Maricopans want “to recreate Michigan”, whereas people in Pima accept that they live in a desert and use water responsibly.

How Might America's Changing Demographics Affect Politics?

This week's Economist looked at the 2010 Census Redistricting data from the perspective of what this might mean for the political landscape in the US. We won't have detailed age data for the country until May, but the redistricting data do break the population into the two age groups of under 18 (i.e., not of voting age), and 18 and older. The 18 and older non-Hispanic white population in the US grew very slightly between 2000 and 2010, but there were fewer non-Hispanic whites under the age of 18 in 2010 than there had been in 2000. The same was true for blacks, although the loss at the younger ages was not as large in percentage terms as for the whites. At the same time, there were substantial gains in both age groups for Hispanics and Asians.

What all this means for politics is the subject of some dispute. Right-wing analysts herald the ballooning population of the Republican-leaning states in the South and West and the relative stagnation of the Democratic bastions in the Midwest and north-east as proof of the superiority of Republican policies. What is more, they crow, faster growth is bringing more seats in the House of Representatives to Republican states, which could help to cement their current majority. Conservative Texas, for example, is gaining four seats in the reapportionment set in train by last year’s census; liberal New York is losing two.

The World Approaches 7 Billion

I routinely refer to the world's population as being 7 billion, but the UN Population Division estimates that we are still just short of that number, although we will reach it during 2011. In anticipation of this event, the National Geographic has created a series of videos exploring the "face" of seven billion, and reliving some of the important transitions that got us to this point. These resources are available on their website: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/7-billion

Europe Gets Even Less Immigrant Friendly

A report out today from the Associated Press details the various ways in which European nations have been making life ever harder for immigrants (in this case, legal ones) to get a job. The lead is about Italy, which now requires that workers demonstrate a knowledge of the Italian language before they can be issued a work permit.

Some immigrant advocates worry that as harsh economic times make it harder for natives to keep jobs, such measures will become more a vehicle for intolerance than integration. Others say it's only natural that newcomers learn the language of their host nation, seeing it as a condition to ensure they can contribute to society.

So far, Italy is only giving a gentle turn to the screw. Cojochru and other test-takers described the exam as easy. No oral skills were tested.

But the story from Italy is just the tip of the iceberg.

Libyan Violence Produces a Mass Exodus

Predictably, the mass violence in Libya has produced a mass exodus. Tunisia, which shares a border with Libya, was the first country affected, has helped to set up Libyan refugee camps, even while many of its own citizens have fled to Italy and elsewhere. It appears that many of those fleeing Libya for Tunisia are Egyptians who has been working in Libya.

In the meantime, the Italian foreign minister has expressed deep concern about the possibility of large numbers of people fleeing Libya and turning up in Italy:

Franco Frattini, the foreign minister, said Italy was bracing for an exodus 10 times bigger than the number of Albanians who fled to Italy in the 1990s when the Balkan nation descended into anarchy.

"We know what to expect when the Libyan national system falls – a wave of 200,000 to 300,000 immigrants," Mr Frattini said.

"These are estimates, and on the low side ... It is a Biblical exodus. It's a problem that no Italian should underestimate."

He said about a third of Libya's population, or 2.5 million people, are immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa who could flee if the popular revolt topples the government of Muammar Gaddafi.

More Thoughts on Muslims in Europe

Joyce Armstrong, Editor at the Migration Information Source of the Migration Policy Institute, has put down some reactions to the Pew Research Center's report on the growth of the Muslim population, which I mentioned earlier. Her notes, which went out in a listserv email, but which I cannot find online, largely concern the issue of Muslims in Europe, and since they are referenced to sources, I am taking the liberty here of copying the entire set of her comments:

A recent study by the Pew Research Center projecting a 35 percent increase in the worldwide Muslim population over the next 20 years has been making headlines and stirring debate about the immigration and integration of Muslims in Western nations. (See MPI's Elizabeth Collett discuss this topic on Russia TV's CrossTalk program.) 

The Pew report, titled The Future of the Global Muslim Population, predicts that by 2030 the number of Muslims in Europe will grow by one-third and will represent roughly 10 percent of the population in France, 7 percent in Germany, and 8 percent in the Netherlands. 

This comes at a time of increased discussion and policy action surrounding the integration and culture of Muslims in European society, and the Pew projections may spark new concerns in countries where anti-Muslim sentiments run high. 

In Germany, for example, Chancellor Angela Merkel recently declared the nation's integration policy a failure, federal bank employee Thilo Sarrazin published an incendiary book blaming Muslims for many of the country's problems, and the state of Hesse has made the wearing of face veils by public-sector employees illegal. 

Multiracial Categories Mess Up Government Statistics

One of the interesting side-effects of the Census Bureau's decision (with approval from the Office of Management and Budget) in 2000 to include a multi-racial question on the census is that government bean-counters (and, to be fair, researchers as well) have more difficulty pigeon-holing people in terms of their race. Of course, that was the whole idea--the United States is an increasingly multi-racial society and the statistics should reflect that fact. This gets more complicated when government agencies, or other organizations, do not follow the Census Bureau's practice of keeping race separate from Hispanic/Latino ethnicity. Thus, the New York Times today chews over how to categorize a young woman--

"a university student who is of Peruvian, Chinese, Irish, Shawnee and Cherokee descent — as “Hispanic.” But the National Center for Health Statistics, the government agency that tracks data on births and deaths, would pronounce her “Asian” and "Hispanic." And what does Ms. López-Mullins’s birth certificate from the State of Maryland say? It doesn’t mention her race. Ms. López-Mullins, 20, usually marks “other” on surveys these days, but when she filled out a census form last year, she chose Asian, Hispanic, Native American and white."

Will the Protests in the Arab World Have a Demographic Impact?

With the sudden and unexpected momentum of street demonstrations in Arab nations, especially in Egypt, many people are trying to take stock of what it means for the future. Anthony Shadid in the New York Times gets at what seems to be the heart of the matter throughout the region--people are tired of repressive and corrupt governments that are holding the people back from accomplishing what they believe they can do with their lives, if only given a chance.

“Dignity” was a word often used Wednesday, and its emphasis underlined the breadth of a movement that is, so far, leaderless. Neither the Brotherhood nor a handful of opposition leaders — men like Mohammed ElBaradei or Ayman Nour — have managed to articulate hopelessness, the humiliations at the hands of the police and the outrage at having too little money to marry, echoed in the streets of Palestinian camps in Jordan and in the urban misery of Baghdad’s Sadr City. For many, the Brotherhood itself is a vestige of an older order that has failed to deliver.

The Emergence of Latino Political Influence in the US

An important takeaway from the recently released census numbers (the state data used for congressional apportionment) was that the growing Latino population in the US made a difference, and Latino organizations such LatinoDecisions are very aware of this, but with a realistic outlook on what it means:

The difficulty for Latinos in the reapportionment and representation process is this: states will gain legislative representation due to surges in Latino population, yet millions contributing to the net population growth are not able to vote due to age or citizenship status.  One-third of all Latino American citizens are too young to vote, and another 12.8 million Latinos are not eligible due to citizenship status.   Furthermore, recent years have seen politics fueled with anti-Latino rhetoric and policy agendas that are diametrically opposed to Latino preferences.  Thus, it is uncertain how much substantive or descriptive representation Latinos stand to gain from upcoming redistricting despite their obvious national presence.  It would be a horrible irony to see states adding congressional seats because of Latino growth, only to design districts and/or elect representatives with legislative agendas antagonistic to Latino interests in the state.  Once states have re-drawn their new districts, it will be worth revisiting how Latinos factored into deliberations and the prospects for increased representation.

A Rebellion of the Young in Tunisia

The President of Tunisia, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, fled the country yesterday and sought refuge in Saudi Arabia, the victim what appears to be the first successful street demonstration rebellion in the Arab world. According to a story by David Kirkpatrick in the New York Times:

The antigovernment protests began a month ago when a college-educated street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi in the small town of Sidi Bouzid burned himself to death in despair at the frustration and joblessness confronting many educated young people here. But the protests he inspired quickly evolved from bread-and-butter issues to demands for an assault on the perceived corruption and self-enrichment of the ruling family.

The self-enrichment issue related especially to Ben Ali's second wife "the former Leila Trabelsi, a hairdresser from a humble family whose relatives have amassed conspicuous fortunes since her 1992 marriage. 'Policeman, open your eyes, the hairdresser is ruling you,' they chanted, addressing Mr. Ben Ali."

Palestinians as a Political Force in Latin America

A half-century of political instability in the Middle East has created a huge Palestinian (and Lebanese) diaspora, with a large fraction of migrants from there having settled in several Latin American countries (think of Shakira, for example, the Lebanese-origin Colombian singer). My son, Greg Weeks, has posted several comments on this phenomenon. Chile has a large Palestinian-origin population, and this is almost certainly behind the decision of Chile's President Piñera to support an independent Palestinian state.

At the same time, a PhD student doing research for his dissertation in Honduras has talked about the rise of Protestant Evangelicals in Latin America who have an affinity for the Jewish state and who refer to Palestinians somewhat derogatorily as "turcos."