Fact Tank - News In Numbers | Pew Research Center

By Anthony Cilluffo and Neil G. Ruiz

For the first time in modern history, the world’s population is expected to virtually stop growing by the end of this century, due in large part to falling global fertility rates, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of new data from the United Nations.

By 2100, the world’s population is projected to reach approximately 10.9 billion, with annual growth of less than 0.1% – a steep decline from the current rate. Between 1950 and today, the world’s population grew between 1% and 2% each year, with the number of people rising from 2.5 billion to more than 7.7 billion.

Here are 11 key takeaways from the UN’s “World Population Prospects 2019”:

1The global fertility rate is expected to be 1.9 births per woman by 2100, down from 2.5 today. The rate is projected to fall below the replacement fertility rate (2.1 births per woman) by 2070. The replacement fertility rate is the number of births per woman needed to maintain a population’s size.

2The world’s median age is expected to increase to 42 in 2100, up from the current 31 – and from 24 in 1950. Between 2020 and 2100, the number of people ages 80 and older is expected to increase from 146 million to 881 million. Starting in 2073, there are projected to be more people ages 65 and older than under age 15 – the first time this will be the case. Contributing factors to the rise in the median age are the increase in life expectancy and falling fertility rates.

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Topics:

Population Geography Population Trends Population Projections Demographics

By Jynnah Radford

Immigrants listen to a speech as they wait to become U.S. citizens at a naturalization ceremony in Los Angeles. (Mark Ralson/AFP/Getty Images)

The United States has more immigrants than any other country in the world. Today, more than 40 million people living in the U.S. were born in another country, accounting for about one-fifth of the world’s migrants in 2017. The population of immigrants is also very diverse, with just about every country in the world represented among U.S. immigrants.

View interactive charts and detailed tables on U.S. immigrants.

Pew Research Center regularly publishes statistical portraits of the nation’s foreign-born population, which include historical trends since 1960. Based on these portraits, here are answers to some key questions about the U.S. immigrant population.

How many people in the U.S. are immigrants?

The U.S. foreign-born population reached a record 44.4 million in 2017. Since 1965, when U.S. immigration laws replaced a national quota system, the number of immigrants living in the U.S. has more than quadrupled. Immigrants today account for 13.6% of the U.S. population, nearly triple the share (4.7%) in 1970. However, today’s immigrant share remains below the record 14.8% share in 1890, when 9.2 million immigrants lived in the U.S.

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Topics:

Immigration Trends Population Geography Global Migration and Demography Population Trends Migration Immigration

By Jeffrey Gottfried

The proliferation of altered videos – some of which are known as “deepfakes” – has sparked concern in recent years, particularly as a growing share of Americans now get news from online video-sharing sites such as YouTube. Overall, the U.S. public sees altered videos and images as a major problem and believes action should be taken to stop them, a recent Pew Research Center survey found.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans (63%) say made-up or altered videos and images create a great deal of confusion about the facts of current issues and events, with another 27% saying they create some confusion, according to the survey, conducted Feb. 19-March 4, 2019. Just one-in-ten say these videos and images create not much confusion or none at all.

Meanwhile, roughly three-quarters of U.S. adults (77%) say steps should be taken to restrict altered videos and images that are intended to mislead. Far fewer (22%) favor protecting the freedom to publish and access them.

Underlying this high level of concern is the substantial reach that altered videos have. About two-thirds of Americans (66%) say they at least sometimes come across altered videos and images that are intended to mislead, with 15% encountering them often. One-third (33%) say they hardly ever or never come across altered videos or images.

Overall, Americans largely say the public should not be expected to know when a video or image has been altered or made up entirely. About six-in-ten U.S. adults (61%) say it is too much to ask of the average American to be able to recognize altered videos and images, while fewer than half (38%) say the public should be able to recognize them.

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Topics:

Trust, Facts and Democracy News Media Trends Digital Media

By Aleksandra Sandstrom and Philip Schwadel

Lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans tend to be more skeptical of churches and other religious institutions than straight adults, according to a new analysis of a 2014 Pew Research Center survey of more than 35,000 U.S. adults.

These views may not be a surprise: In a separate survey conducted by the Center in 2013, many LBGT Americans told us that they feel major religions are unfriendly toward LGBT people.

In the 2014 survey, about seven-in-ten lesbian, gay and bisexual adults said churches and other religious organizations focus too much on rules, compared with half of straight adults who said this. LGB adults were also much more likely than straight adults to say churches are too involved in politics (66% vs. 47%) and are too concerned with money and power (64% vs. 51%). Conversely, lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans were less likely than straight Americans to say churches protect and strengthen morality. (The survey asked respondents whether they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or straight, but did not ask about other types of identity related to gender and sexuality.)

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Topics:

Gay Marriage and Homosexuality Religion and Society Social Values

By Jens Manuel Krogstad, Jeffrey S. Passel and D’Vera Cohn

The number of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States has dropped to the level it was in 2004, and Mexicans are no longer a majority of this population. This decline is due mainly to a large drop in the number of new unauthorized immigrants, especially Mexicans, coming into the country. The origin countries of unauthorized immigrants also shifted during that time, with the number from Mexico declining and the number rising from Central America and Asia, according to the latest Pew Research Center estimates.

Here are five facts about the unauthorized immigrant population in the U.S.

1There were 10.5 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. in 2017, representing 3.2% of the total U.S. population that year. The 2017 unauthorized immigrant total is a 14% drop from the peak of 12.2 million in 2007, when this group was 4% of the U.S. population.

2The number of Mexican unauthorized immigrants declined since 2007, while the total from other nations ticked up. Mexicans made up less than half of all unauthorized U.S. immigrants (47%) in 2017 for the first time, according to the Center’s estimate, compared with 57% in 2007. Their numbers (and share of the total) have been declining in recent years: There were 4.9 million Mexican unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in 2017, down from 6.9 million in 2007.

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Meanwhile, the total from other nations, 5.5 million in 2017, ticked up from 2007, when it was 5.3 million. The number of unauthorized immigrants has grown since 2007 from both Central America and Asia. There were 1.5 million Central American unauthorized immigrants in 2007 and 1.9 million in 2017. This growth was fueled mainly by immigrants from the Northern Triangle nations of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The number from Asia, 1.3 million in 2007, rose to 1.5 million in 2017.

At the same time, the number of unauthorized immigrants from South America and Europe decreased between 2007 and 2017. Other large regions (the Caribbean, Middle East-North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world) did not change significantly during that time.

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Topics:

Unauthorized Immigration Immigration Trends Global Migration and Demography Migration Immigration

By Jeffrey S. Passel and D’Vera Cohn

The number of Mexican unauthorized immigrants in the United States declined so sharply over the past decade that they no longer are the majority of those living in the country illegally, according to new Pew Research Center estimates based on government data. In 2017, there were 10.5 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S., including 4.9 million Mexicans.

The decrease in the Mexican born was the major factor driving down the overall population of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S., which in 2017 was 1.7 million below its peak of 12.2 million in 2007.

The number of Mexican unauthorized immigrants declined because more left the U.S. than arrived. Mexicans remain a much larger percentage of all unauthorized immigrants than those from any other birth country. But their 47% share of U.S. unauthorized immigrants in 2017 amounted to less than a majority for the first time since the beginning of a long era of growth in illegal immigration a half century ago. That rise began after passage of a major overhaul of immigration policy in 1965, which imposed the first limits on immigration from Western Hemisphere countries, including Mexico, and coincided with the end of the Bracero program that had allowed temporary farm workers from Mexico to work legally in the U.S.

The number of Mexican unauthorized immigrants has fallen by 2 million since its peak of 6.9 million in 2007 and was lower in 2017 than in any year since 2001. Similarly, the number of apprehensions of Mexicans at the U.S. border also has fallen over the decade, a trend that began even earlier. In fact, apprehensions of non-Mexicans outnumbered those of Mexicans for the past three fiscal years, according to federal statistics.

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Topics:

Unauthorized Immigration Immigration Trends Migration Immigration

By Gretchen Livingston and Kim Parker

A father and daughter at a playground in Aurora, Colorado. (Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

Fatherhood in America is changing. Today, fathers who live with their children are taking a more active role in caring for them and helping out around the house, and the ranks of single fathers have grown significantly in recent decades. At the same time, more and more children are growing up without a father in the home.

The changing role of fathers has introduced new challenges as dads juggle the competing demands of family and work. Here are some key findings about fathers from Pew Research Center.

1More dads are staying home to care for their kids. The share of fathers who are stay-at-home dads ticked up from 4% in 1989 to 7% in 2016. As a result, dads made up 17% of all stay-at-home parents in 2016, up from 10% in 1989. Among Millennials (those ages 20 to 35 in 2016), 6% of dads were at home with their kids. By comparison, 3% of Gen X dads were at home with their kids when they were the same age.

Among stay-at-home dads, it’s becoming much more common to be home specifically to care for family. In 2016, 24% of stay-at-home dads reported that this was the main reason they were at home, up from just 4% in 1989. In comparison, 78% of stay-at-home moms reported this was the main reason they were home, down from 86% in 1989.

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Topics:

Family Roles Parenthood Household and Family Structure

By Antonio Flores, Luis Noe-Bustamante and Mark Hugo Lopez

Central American migrants arrive in Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, on June 10 after crossing the Suchiate River from Guatemala on a makeshift raft. (Pedro Pardo/AFP/Getty Images)

Mexico has apprehended and deported more migrants within its borders so far this fiscal year than at the same point in fiscal 2018, though the totals remain well below levels recorded in other recent years, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from Mexico’s office for population and immigration statistics.

The migrants apprehended and deported are individuals who failed to present valid immigrant documentation in Mexico. They largely come from the same three Central American countries that have driven a surge in migration at the southern border of the United States in recent months: El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

President Donald Trump has called on Mexico to do more to reduce the flow of migrants into the U.S., threatening to impose tariffs against America’s southern neighbor unless it broadens its effort to curtail the number of Central American migrants that reach the U.S.-Mexico border. Amid the escalation in tensions, here’s a look at how current migrant apprehension and deportation patterns in Mexico compare with past trends:

1Mexican authorities apprehended nearly 92,000 migrants in the first seven months of fiscal 2019, up 32% from the same period the previous year. Still, this year’s total remains below the 141,000 apprehensions made during the same period in fiscal 2006 (when the U.S. also experienced a surge of non-Mexican immigrant apprehensions at the southern border). It’s also far below the number of southern border apprehensions made by the U.S. government during the first seven months of fiscal 2019.

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Topics:

Mexico Migration Latin America Immigration

By Claire Gecewicz

Reports of sex abuse by priests and other clergy are atop the agenda for two of America’s largest religious groups this week as both U.S. Catholic bishops and Southern Baptists gather for national meetings.

A new Pew Research Center survey examines Americans’ views on the sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, as well as in other religious groups. Here are six key findings from the report:

1A clear majority of U.S. adults think recent reports of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church reflect problems that are still happening. Around eight-in-ten Americans (79%) say the reports of sexual abuse and misconduct by Catholic priests and bishops reflect ongoing problems, while far fewer (12%) think the reports reflect problems that happened in the past.

2Reports of sexual abuse among Catholic leaders have recently dominated headlines, but there have also been numerous reports of sexual abuse in other religious organizations. For instance, an investigation earlier this year revealed decades of abuse within the Southern Baptist Convention.

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Topics:

Catholics and Catholicism Christians and Christianity Religion and Society Religious Affiliation

By John Gramlich

Trials are rare in the federal criminal justice system – and acquittals are even rarer.

Nearly 80,000 people were defendants in federal criminal cases in fiscal 2018, but just 2% of them went to trial. The overwhelming majority (90%) pleaded guilty instead, while the remaining 8% had their cases dismissed, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data collected by the federal judiciary.

Most defendants who did go to trial, meanwhile, were found guilty, either by a jury or judge. (Defendants can waive their right to a jury trial if they wish.)

Put another way, only 320 of 79,704 total federal defendants – fewer than 1% – went to trial and won their cases, at least in the form of an acquittal, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. These statistics include all defendants charged in U.S. district courts with felonies and serious misdemeanors, as well as some defendants charged with petty offenses. They do not include federal defendants whose cases were handled by magistrate judges, or the much broader universe of defendants in state courts. Defendants who enter pleas of “no contest” are also excluded.

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Topic:

Criminal Justice

NEWS IN THE NUMBERS

World’s population is projected to nearly stop growing by the end of the century

Key findings about U.S. immigrants

View interactive charts and detailed tables on U.S. immigrants.

How many people in the U.S. are immigrants?

About three-quarters of Americans favor steps to restrict altered videos and images

5 facts about illegal immigration in the U.S.

Try our email course on immigration

Mexicans decline to less than half the U.S. unauthorized immigrant population for the first time

Migrant apprehensions and deportations increase in Mexico, but remain below recent highs

Key takeaways about how Americans view the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church

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