The Senate has approved the nomination of University of Michigan survey researcher Robert Groves as director of the US Census Bureau. For more, see the New York Times article.

In 1 out of 6 counties in the US, minority kids outnumber white kids, and their numbers will continue to grow, according to a USA Today story. Reporter Haya El Nasser interviews demographers Kenneth Johnson and Daniel Lichter about the trend.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy has released a new survey of Latino teens and adults about teen pregnancy and related issues, Toward a Common Future.

Changing patterns of nonmarital childbearing in the United States, released Monday by the National Center for Health Statistics, reports that childbearing by unmarried women has risen, and the increase has come from women in their 20s and older. The report uses data from the Natality Data File and the National Vital Statistics System.

“Did America’s moms and dads and potential parents see the meltdown coming before the economists?” asks an AP news story. According to Census data, the rate of growth in the baby population dropped between 2007 and 2008.

The Census Bureau reports that the national mover rate declined from 13.2 percent in 2007 to 11.9 percent in 2008 — the lowest rate since the bureau began tracking these data in 1948. Detailed tables on geographic mobility are available.

The US had a record 4,317,000 births in 2007, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics (Births, Preliminary Data for 2007 [PDF]).

As reported in the New York Times, other significant data points include:

• teen births rose for the second straight year
• births to unmarried women reached a record high of 40%
• the rate of deliveries by Caesarean section continues to rise

Getting an accurate count of minority and immigrant populations has always posed a challenge for the Census Bureau, but in 2010 the issue may be even more complex, as reported by the AP (see International Herald Tribune article).

Educational Attainment in the United States: 2007 (PDF, from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Reports) uses data from the American Community Survey and the Current Population Survey.

Among the findings:

• A larger proportion of women than men had completed high school or more education. A larger proportion of men had received at least a bachelor’s degree.
• Differences in educational attainment by race and Hispanic origin existed. Attainment for non-Hispanic Whites and Asians was higher than attainment for Blacks and Hispanics. (Hispanics may be any race.)
• Educational attainment varied by nativity. About 88 percent of the native-born population had at least a high school diploma, compared to 68 percent of the foreign-born population. More native-born than foreign-born adults reported completing at least a bachelor’s degree (28 percent and 27 percent, respectively), while more foreign-born than nativeborn adults reported having an advanced degree (11 percent and 10 percent, respectively).
• Educational attainment of foreign-born Hispanics was lower than all other groups. The percentage of foreign-born Hispanics who had completed at least high school was 49 percent, which is the same as the percentage of foreign-born Asians who had completed college or more education.

According to new federal data, the US birth rate increased, and teen births increased for the first time since 1991 (USA Today).

Citation: Martin, J.A., et al. (2008). Births: Final data for 2006. National Vital Statistics Reports, 57(7). Available online (PDF)