D’Vera Cohn is a senior writer and editor at Pew Research Center. She was a Washington Post reporter for 21 years, mainly writing about demographics, and was the newspaper’s lead reporter for the 2000 Census. After leaving the newspaper in 2006, she served as a consultant and freelance writer for the Pew Research Center’s Hispanic Trends Project, Brookings Institution and Population Reference Bureau. She also has advised the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism on demographic topics, and has spoken at national journalism conferences about how reporters can make use of demographic data in stories. A graduate of Bryn Mawr College, she is a former Nieman Fellow.

This posting explores statistics about marriage rates, median age at first marriage and attitudes about marriage. Although the marriage rate is at a record low, most never-married Americans say they would like to marry. "Love" is cited more than other factors as a reason to get married, according to a Pew Research Center survey.

A new Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data finds that U.S.-born adult children of immigrants are better off than immigrants on key measures of socio-economic well-being. The same report analyzes survey data on Hispanics and Asian Americans, comparing attitudes of immigrants and U.S.-born children of immigrants on politics, values, language use and other measures.

The Census Bureau has released new U.S. population projections that assume a markedly lower level of growth than the agency predicted in the previous projections in 2008. Most of the reduced growth is due to lower projected immigration, but the bureau also forecast lower birth rates than it previously assumed.

Every decade, new information from the decennial census is used to update a wide range of government demographic estimates and survey benchmarks. In some cases, that results in revisions to previously published data, which researchers need to note.

The Census Bureau released 2011 American Community Survey data today, and this posting looks at news coverage about the newly released estimates. Most coverage focused on economic indicators, with some stories saying the economy was still declining but others concluding the decline may have bottomed out.

This posting summarizes a new Pew Hispanic Center report about Hispanics in the 60 metropolitan areas with the largest Latino populations. The report includes analysis, comparison and rankings of these areas on key counts and characteristics. There also are statistical profiles of the 60 areas and two interactive maps.

The Pew Research Center has published a number of recent reports that are relevant to the new Census Bureau numbers for the 2011 poverty rate, median household income and people without health insurance. This posting lists and links to reports about Americans' attitudes toward their own economic circumstances and views on helping the poor, as well as analysis and explanation about poverty and economic well-being.

This posting describes and links to a new report, "The Lost Decade of the Middle Class," that combines income data from the Census Bureau, wealth data from the Survey of Consumer Finances and findings from a new survey to paint a portrait of diminished finances and muted hopes.

This posting includes links to newly released Census Bureau research on how Americans should be asked about their race and ethnicity. It links to a previous posting that explains the background behind this ground-breaking research.

The race and Hispanic origin categories on the 2010 Census form (and many other government forms) do not always match people's self-identification, and this is especially true for Hispanics. The Census Bureau will present results of research on alternative questionnaire designs and wording that attempts to address the issue.