America's Diversity: On the Edge of Two Centuries

 This second issue of PRB Reports on America uses population data from the 1890s and the 1990s to show that immigration and diversity were as much a part of our turn-of-the-last-century conversations as they are of our current conversations about the kind of country that America was founded to be and about the country it has become. (1999)

Child Poverty in Rural America (PDF: 484KB)

This report explores the well-being of the 14 million children who live in rural America. Rural families represent a significant share of our total population and they are disproportionately poor, less educated, and underemployed. Yet poor children and the unique challenges they face are often overlooked by policymakers. (March 2004)

Children in U.S. Immigrant Families Chart New Path
A new PRB report, Children in Immigrant Families Chart New Path, looks at the U.S. children of immigrants through a demographic lens. There are more than 16 million children living in America's immigrant families. The vast majority are U.S. citizens who were born in the United States to foreign-born parents. However, the well-being of children in immigrant families varies based on their parents' country of origin, education, and the circumstances of their migration to the United States. (March 2009)

Government Spending in an Older America
The population of the United States is getting older. In 1950, when the baby boom was just getting underway, 8.2 percent of Americans were age 65 or older; now, 12.6 percent are. The U.S. population's aging is the result of two long-term trends: declining fertility rates and increasing longevity. This report presents data and criteria for judging the alternatives for finding the public finances necessary to deal with this new demographic situation. (May 2002)

The 2000 Census Challenge

 This is the premiere issue of PRB Reports on America—a new publication series from PRB that focuses on important demographic issues facing the United States. In this report on the 2000 census, Barry Edmonston describes ways to reform the traditional census, especially in light of the Supreme Court decision to bar sampling for purposes of apportionment. (1999)

The Career Quandary

 According to this PRB Reports on America, careers in the United States are still based on the conventional (male) breadwinner template: a lock-step, full-time march to a one-way, one-time retirement. What is required in today's marketplace are innovative and flexible work-hour and career path policies that recognize and respond to the new quandary of old rules but new work force realities. (2001)

The Rural Rebound

 After many decades of rural population loss, this demographic trend is reversing itself. More people are moving from urban to rural areas and fewer rural people are leaving. This issue of PRB Reports on America explains the complex set of economic, social, and geographic forces that are creating this 1990s rebound. (1999)