Will Hispanics Swing the Vote in November in the US?

The Pew Hispanic Center has just released results from a nationwide telephone survey of Hispanics 18 and older conducted during August and September of this year. According to these data, Hispanic registered voters are solidly (65 percent) supportive of candidates from the Democratic party--that's the good news for Democrats. The not-so-good news for Democrats is that scarcely half (51 percent) of those registered Hispanic voters expect to vote, which is considerably lower than the 70 percent among all registered voters.

Midterm elections typically have lower voter turnout than Presidential year elections, but if only 51 percent of Hispanics show up to vote, it will represent a very significant decline from the 2008 election. Data from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS) show that 84 percent of registered Hispanic voters went to the polls in 2008, although that was lower than 90 percent among whites and 92 percent among blacks. At the same time, only 59 percent of Hispanic US citizens aged 18 and older are registered to vote, according to the CPS, well below the 74 percent among non-Hispanic whites and 69 percent among non-Hispanic blacks. Asians, however, have an even lower percent of citizens (55) registered to vote.

Are India's Demographics Better Than China's?

The Economist this week leads with a story that India's demographics are better than China's for the foreseeable future and therefore investors ought to line up their money accordingly. The Economist is one of the fairest news sources that I know, but this article pushes that envelope. 

Several factors weigh in India’s favour. The first is demography. Indians are young (see chart 1). “An ageing world needs workers; a young country has workers,” says Mr Nilekani [of the investment banking firm Morgan Stanley]. Previous Asian booms have been powered by a surge in the working-age population. Now it is India’s turn. The proportion of Indians aged under 15 or over 64 has declined from 69% in 1995 to 56% this year, says the UN. India’s working-age population will increase by 136m by 2020; China’s will grow by a mere 23m, says Morgan Stanley.

The first problem with the article is that the demographic data, drawn originally from the United Nations Population Division, have been interpreted not by demographers, but by investment bankers, who are likely to have a vested (if not invested) interest in their interpretation. It is true that fertility is declining in India and that the age structure is more favorable to economic development than it used to be. But that decline in fertility is MUCH slower than in China (which almost certainly would have had a rapid fertility decline even without the one-child policy), and so the demographic dividend is not going to be anything like that experienced by China.

What is the Differential Undercount in the Census of Marine Life?

The first ever census of marine life has recently been completed, more than a decade after it was first conceptualized, and after the expenditure of $600 million and the participation of nearly 3,000 scientists. 

With sound, satellites, and electronics, some- times carried by marine life itself, the Census tracking of thousands of animals mapped migratory routes of scores of species and charted their meeting places and blue highways across the interconnected ocean. The tracking measured animals’ surroundings as they swam and dove and revealed where they succeed and where they die. The Census found temperature zones favored by animals and saw the immigration into new conditions such as melting ice.