Residents participate in a service of prayers and hymns for peace in advance of a planned white supremacist rally and counter-protest in August 2017 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
How much do people feel that what happens to members of their own racial or ethnic group affects what happens in their own lives? What about what happens to other groups? Known among researchers as “linked fate,” this sense of connectedness was originally used to explain persistent Democratic voting bloc patterns among black Americans. More recently it has been used to examine not only how closely connected black Americans feel toward one another, but also connectedness between and among other racial groups.
A recent Pew Research Center survey finds that racial or ethnic group membership, education and partisanship are the most important determinants of linked fate within and across racial groups. For blacks and Hispanics specifically, experiences of discrimination increase the likelihood of saying that what happens to the other group would affect them.
When asked how much what happens to blacks, whites, Hispanics and Asians in the United States affects their own lives, U.S. adults say that what happens to their own racial or ethnic group affects them the most. This is most pronounced among black adults: 44% in this group say that what happens to other blacks impacts their own lives a lot. And it is especially true for black adults with a bachelor’s degree or more education, 58% of whom say that what happens to other black people affects them a lot compared with 49% of those with some college and 33% with a high school diploma or less education. There are no gender or age differences among black people in this regard.
Newborn babies at a Mumbai hospital on World Population Day 2017. The UN projects that by 2027 India will surpass China as the world’s most populous country. (Kunal Patil/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)
Four of the 10 most populous countries in the world will no longer be among the top 10 in 2100 – and all four will be supplanted by rapidly growing nations in Africa, according to recently released population projections from the United Nations.
Brazil, Bangladesh, Russia and Mexico are among the world’s 10 most populous countries today. By 2100, they are projected to be overtaken by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Egypt – none of which are currently in the top 10.
This changing of the guard is expected to occur because of sluggish population growth over the next eight decades in Mexico (+10% by 2100) and population losses in Brazil (-15%), Bangladesh (-8%) and Russia (-14%). Each of the four African countries, by contrast, is expected to more than double in population, with increases of 304% in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 156% in Ethiopia, 378% in Tanzania and 120% in Egypt.
Here’s how the list of the 10 most populous countries in the world has changed since 1950 – and how it is projected to change again by 2100:
Africa’s rapid population growth is one of the dominant stories to emerge from the UN’s projections. Of the six countries that are projected to account for more than half of all world population growth by 2100, five are in Africa, as a previous Pew Research Center analysis noted. Half the world’s babies will be born in Africa by 2100, up from three-in-ten today.
U.S. Army Capt. Matt Anderson and Sgts. (Ret.) Daniel Harrison and Noah Galloway ride in a helicopter to Forward Operating Base Fenty near Bagram, Afghanistan, in 2014. They were touring with a program that brings wounded servicemen back to Iraq and Afghanistan to help them come to terms with their injuries. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Nearly 18 years since the start of the war in Afghanistan and 16 years since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, majorities of U.S. military veterans say those wars were not worth fighting, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of veterans. A parallel survey of American adults finds that the public shares those sentiments.
Among veterans, 64% say the war in Iraq was not worth fighting considering the costs versus the benefits to the United States, while 33% say it was. The general public’s views are nearly identical: 62% of Americans overall say the Iraq War wasn’t worth it and 32% say it was. Similarly, majorities of both veterans (58%) and the public (59%) say the war in Afghanistan was not worth fighting. About four-in-ten or fewer say it was worth fighting.
Veterans who served in either Iraq or Afghanistan are no more supportive of those engagements than those who did not serve in these wars. And views do not differ based on rank or combat experience.
Newsroom employment across the United States continues to decline, driven primarily by job losses at newspapers. And even though digital-native news outlets have experienced some recent growth in employment, they have added too few newsroom positions to make up for recent losses in the broader industry, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics survey data.
From 2008 to 2018, newsroom employment in the U.S. dropped by 25%. In 2008, about 114,000 newsroom employees – reporters, editors, photographers and videographers – worked in five industries that produce news: newspaper, radio, broadcast television, cable and “other information services” (the best match for digital-native news publishers). By 2018, that number had declined to about 86,000, a loss of about 28,000 jobs.
The U.S. Hispanic population reached a record 59.9 million in 2018, up 1.2 million over the previous year and up from 47.8 million in 2008, according to newly released U.S. Census Bureau population estimates. Over the past decade, however, population growth among Hispanics has slowed as the annual number of births to Hispanic women has declined and immigration has decreased, particularly from Mexico.
Even so, Latinos remain an important part of the nation’s overall demographic story. Between 2008 and 2018, the Latino share of the total U.S. population increased from 16% to 18%. Latinos accounted for about half (52%) of all U.S. population growth over this period.
Here are some key facts about how the nation’s Latino population has changed over the past decade:
Andrew Kohut, the founding director of Pew Research Center and its president from 2004 to 2012, was one of the nation’s leading pollsters. He died in 2015. His work, over three decades, won him wide respect for his expertise and ability to craft stories about what people could learn from survey research. One of his particular talents was to reach back in time to take a snapshot of the mood of Americans in another era to show how much times had changed.
Here is one of those articles, originally published on Nov. 20, 2013.
As America marks the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s death, his life, family, strengths and weakness have been pored over in recent weeks, but little has been said about how the public viewed the country during the Kennedy years. The Gallup polls of that period illustrate how different a time this was. The mood of America then had few parallels with the modern era.
New York City’s 2017 Independence Day display. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AFP/Getty Images)
Independence Day is a national celebration of freedom, fireworks, family, friends and frankfurters. It’s also, by one measure, the most dangerous day of the year.
On average, more than 45,000 people visit U.S. hospital emergency rooms for treatment of injuries on July 4 and 5 – nearly 91,000 in total, by far the highest daily numbers in the entire year. By comparison, the average daily number of injury-related ER visits over the summer months (June, July and August) is about 40,700. The holidays that bookend summer have somewhat higher averages – about 41,900 for the last week in May, covering Memorial Day weekend, and 42,200 for the first week of September, which typically includes Labor Day weekend – but even they are well below Independence Day.
The biggest reason for the Fourth of July spike in injury-related ER visits? No surprise: fireworks. On average, more than half of all the fireworks-related injuries Americans sustain each year occur during the first eight days of July – a total of nearly 4,900 last year.
(Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Americans ages 60 and older are alone for more than half of their daily measured time – which includes all waking hours except those spent engaged in personal activities such as grooming. All told, this amounts to about seven hours a day; and among those who live by themselves, alone time rises to over 10 hours a day, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
In comparison, people in their 40s and 50s spend about 4 hours and 45 minutes alone, and those younger than 40 spend about three and a half hours a day alone, on average. Moreover, 14% of older Americans report spending all their daily measured time alone, compared with 8% of people younger than 60.
While time spent alone is not necessarily associated with adverse effects, it can be used as a measure of social isolation, which in turn is linked with negative health outcomes among older adults. Medical experts suspect that lifestyle factors may explain some of this association – for instance, someone who is socially isolated may have less cognitive stimulation and more difficulty staying active or taking their medications. In some cases, social isolation may mean there is no one on hand to help in case of a medical emergency.
Last year’s Fourth of July Parade in San Gabriel, California. (Xinhua/Zhao Hanrong via Getty Images)
In a Pew Research Center survey in early 2018, around three-quarters of Americans (74%) said voting in elections was very important to what it means to be a good citizen, and around seven-in-ten said the same about paying taxes (71%) and always following the law (69%). But Democrats and Republicans – as well as younger and older adults – didn’t see eye to eye on all the traits and behaviors associated with good citizenship.
In addition to voting, paying taxes and following the law, a majority of Americans said several other traits were very important to good citizenship, including serving on a jury if called (61%); respecting the opinions of others who disagree (61%); and participating in the U.S. census every decade (60%). (The survey was conducted before the Commerce Department announced it would add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census – a decision blocked by the Supreme Court last week.)
Smaller shares said it was very important to good citizenship for Americans to volunteer to help others (52%), know the Pledge of Allegiance (50%), follow what happens in government and politics (49%) and protest when government actions are believed to be wrong (45%).
And although there will be plenty of them out on July Fourth, displaying the American flag ranked at the bottom of the list: A little over a third of U.S. adults (36%) viewed this as very important to good citizenship, though an additional 26% said it was somewhat important.
About six-in-ten U.S. Hispanic adults (58%) say they have experienced discrimination or been treated unfairly because of their race or ethnicity, though their experiences vary by skin color, according to a recently released Pew Research Center survey.
About two-thirds of Hispanics with darker skin colors (64%) report they have experienced discrimination or been treated unfairly regularly or from time to time, compared with half of those with a lighter skin tone. These differences in experiences with discrimination hold even after controlling for characteristics such as gender, age, education and whether they were born in the U.S. or abroad.
Latinos with darker skin are more likely than those with lighter skin to report a specific incident of discrimination. A majority of Latinos with a darker skin color (55%) say that, because of their race or ethnicity, people have acted as if they were not smart, compared with 36% of Latinos with a lighter skin color. Similarly, about half of Latinos with darker skin (53%) say they have been subject to slurs or jokes, compared with about a third of those with a lighter skin color (34%).
A recent Pew Research Center survey finds that racial or ethnic group membership, education and partisanship are the most important determinants of linked fate within and across racial groups. For blacks and Hispanics specifically, experiences of discrimination increase the likelihood of saying that what happens to the other group would affect them.
