How Many People in the U.S. Are Middle Eastern or North African?
Estimates of the U.S. Middle Eastern or North African population range from 3.1 to 5.2 million in 2024, depending on how ancestry, race and language are counted.
A behind-the-scenes blog about research methods at Pew Research Center.
For our latest findings, visit pewresearch.org.
Demographic Research
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Assessing the effects of generation using age-period-cohort analysis
In this piece, we demonstrate how to conduct age-period-cohort analysis, a statistical tool, to determine the effects of generation.
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How many Taiwanese live in the U.S.? It’s not an easy question to answer
Surveys can produce widely different estimates depending on how people are asked about their backgrounds.
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Urban, suburban or rural? Americans’ perceptions of their own community type differ by party
Even when they live in similar areas, Democrats and Republicans differ over whether those areas are urban, suburban or rural.
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Adapting how we ask about the gender of our survey respondents
Updating our question wording acknowledges changing norms around gender identity and improves data quality and accuracy.
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The ‘class size paradox’: How individual- and group-level perspectives differ, and why it matters in research
The average class size at a university conveys little about the experience of the average student there.
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Measuring community type in Europe, from big cities to country villages
How an outside measure of community type compares with Europeans’ own descriptions of where they live.
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Evaluating what makes a U.S. community urban, suburban or rural
A look at how objective measures of community type compare with the way Americans describe their own areas.
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Welcome to Decoded!
An introduction to the methodological musings, puzzles and tangles that you would see if you could flip those picture-perfect research products over.
