User:Watti Renew/Sandbox/United States Demographics



Population in the United States (Millions) :
 * 1971: 208
 * 1980: 228 (+ 20)
 * 1990: 250 (+ 22)
 * 2000: 282 (+ 32)
 * 2004: 293 (+ 11)
 * 2008: 304 (+ 11)

The U.S. Census estimation of the US population is 0. The US is the third populous country behind China and India.

The population growth rate is 1% and birth rate 13.8 per 1,000 (30% below the world average. In 2010, over 1 million immigrants received legal residence (mostly through family reunification). Mexico (nr 1), China, India, and the Philippines are the major ex-home countries of the immigrants.

The United States has a very diverse population—thirty-one ancestry groups have more than one million members. White Americans are the largest racial group; German Americans, Irish Americans, and English Americans constitute three of the country's four largest ancestry groups. African Americans are the nation's largest racial minority and third largest ancestry group. Asian Americans are the country's second largest racial minority; the two largest Asian American ethnic groups are Chinese Americans and Filipino Americans. In 2010, the U.S. population included an estimated 5.2 million people with some American Indian or Alaska Native ancestry.

In 2007 total population was 301.3 million and 50.5 million (17 %) of Americans were of Hispanic descent and 64% of them Mexican descent. From 2000 to 2010, the Hispanic population increased 43% and the non-Hispanics 4.9% In 2007 12.6% (38 million) of the U.S. population was foreign-born, 20.5 million in Latin America. Minorities (i.e. all but non-Hispanic and non-multiracial whites) share was 36.3% of the population in 2010.

Ca 82% of Americans live in urban areas; In 2008 nine cities had population over 1 million and four global cities over 2 million (New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston), and 52 metropolitan areas with over 1 million.

Language
The major spoken languages in 2007 were English (only) 225.5 million (80 %), Spanish, incl. Creole 34.5 million (12 %), Chinese 2.5 million and |French, incl. Creole 2.0 million.

English is the de facto national language. Although there is no official language at the federal level, some laws—such as U.S. naturalization requirements—standardize English.

New Mexico has laws for the use of both English and Spanish, Louisiana for English and French. and California mandate English and Spanish in certain government documents. Many jurisdictions produce government materials, e.g. voting information, in the most commonly spoken languages. Several insular territories grant official recognition to their native languages.

Religion


The United States is officially a secular nation; the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion and forbids the establishment of any religious governance. In a 2002 study, 59% of Americans said that religion played a "very important role in their lives", a far higher figure than that of any other wealthy nation. According to a 2007 survey, 78.4% of adults identified themselves as Christian, down from 86.4% in 1990. Protestant denominations accounted for 51.3%, while Roman Catholicism, at 23.9%, was the largest individual denomination. The study categorizes white evangelicals, 26.3% of the population, as the country's largest religious cohort; another study estimates evangelicals of all races at 30–35%. The total reporting non-Christian religions in 2007 was 4.7%, up from 3.3% in 1990. The leading non-Christian faiths were Judaism (1.7%), Buddhism (0.7%), Islam (0.6%), Hinduism (0.4%), and Unitarian Universalism (0.3%). The survey also reported that 16.1% of Americans described themselves as agnostic, atheist, or simply having no religion, up from 8.2% in 1990.

Family structure
In 2007, 58% of Americans age 18 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 25% had never been married. Women now mostly work outside the home and receive a majority of bachelor's degrees.

Same-sex marriage is a contentious issue. Some states permit civil unions or domestic partnerships in lieu of marriage. Since 2003, several states have legalized gay marriage as the result of judicial or legislative action. Meanwhile, the federal government and a majority of states define marriage as between a man and a woman and/or explicitly prohibit same-sex marriage. Public opinion on the issue has shifted from general opposition in the 1990s to a statistical deadlock as of 2011.

The U.S. teenage pregnancy rate, 79.8 per 1,000 women, is the highest among OECD nations. Abortion policy was left to the states until the Supreme Court legalized the practice in 1972. The issue remains highly controversial, with public opinion closely divided for many years. Many states ban public funding of the procedure and restrict late-term abortions, require parental notification for minors, and mandate a waiting period. While the abortion rate is falling, the abortion ratio of 241 per 1,000 live births and abortion rate of 15 per 1,000 women aged 15–44 remain higher than those of most Western nations.