Demographic information is very important to marketers. Demographics are descriptors; data that can be somewhat easily described such as age, gender, education, occupation, ethnicity, household size, and more. With this information, marketers can best target campaigns to the correct target market.
The recent census results highlight the changing American demographics from 2010 to 2020. Population has significantly changed in many ways since the 2010 Census results.
- U.S. metro areas grew 9%, resulting in 86% of the population in metro areas compared to 85% in 2020.
- The largest cities in the country are New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Phoenix.
- The fastest growing U.S. metro area was The Villages, Fla., which grew 39% to about 130,000 people.
- People who reported being more than one race spiked.
- Multiracial population is now 33.8 million people, a 276% increase since 2010 (Note that the census tool has been revised since 2010 to give a more accurate racial report.)
- White population declined by 8.6%.
- African-American population grew 5.6%
- Asian population grew by 35%.
- Hispanic population grew by 23%.
- The overall U.S. population growth has slowed to 7.4%, the slowest rate in a century.
- More than 77.9% of the population were age 18 and over.
- Housing units increased 6.7% to more than 140 million units.
No one expects the country to stay the same. What surprised you about the results?
Group Activities and Discussion Questions:
- Discuss the importance of demographics as part of environmental scanning and marketing plans.
- Show the recent Census results: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/population-changes-nations-diversity.html
- The 2020 Census map viewer can be found at: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2021/geo/demographicmapviewer.html
- Divide students into teams. Have each team review the results. What surprised them? How can the data be used?
- Class discussion: What are some of the broad implications of the changing U.S. demographics?
Source: U.S. Census Bureau; New York Time; other news sources
