After 72 Years, Historic Census Records Released. NewsWire

NewsWire: 4/2/22

• Seven decades later, the Census has just released digitized records from 1950. By law, the forms were kept secret for 72 years, but are now available for the public to peruse. (The Wall Street Journal)
  
• NH: Census nerds, rejoice! On April 1, the National Archives debuted a searchable database of the 1950 census forms. Due to federal law, these documents have been kept private for decades.
• In 1978, Congress officially restricted access to census records until 72 years after the data were gathered. There is debate about why Congress initially established this time frame, but ultimately the goal is to protect individuals' privacy. The Census has come under fire recently for potential privacy concerns, but this release isn't being scrutinized because the documents are so old. (See “Census Alters Data Over Privacy Concerns.”) 
• As you sip your Saturday morning coffee, here are some interesting facts about the 1950 census:
• It was the last decennial census written by hand. Surveyors were required to use a “good workable fountain pen.”
• It was the first census to record the Baby Boomer generation.
• The questionnaire was significantly longer than the modern census: In 1950, it asked 38 questions. In 2020, it only asked nine. 
• The results showed that 9% of people lived alone. Today, that share is 3x higher (28%).
• By race, 89.5% of the country self-reported as white, 10.0% black, and 0.5% “other races.” In 2020, those shares were 60%, 12%, and 28%, respectively--with the important proviso that the 2020 question asked about "other ethnicities or races," not just "other races."

Did You Know?

• The Shrinking Religious Landscape. A new report from the Survey Center on American Life offers new statistics on American religious decline: 34% of 18- to 24-year-olds identify as religiously unaffiliated, which falls to 29% among 25- to 40-year-olds and further still moving up the age ladder. Only 9% of 76- to 93-year-olds say they’re religiously unaffiliated. This is a big decline over time, but the drop hides the changing nature of the unaffiliated. All 9% of unaffiliated Silent actively disaffiliated from their childhood religion, and most did so as adults. Among the youngest unaffiliated Millennials, however, 15% were never religious and 19% disaffiliated, most before they turned 18. Most of the growth in the religiously unaffiliated, in other words, is due to Americans increasingly being raised in no religion at all or in a weakly religious environment. The share of late-wave Millennials who are actively disaffiliating from a strong religious tradition may not be all that much higher than the Silent’s.