Telling Stories Using Data
Research shows that females looking to settle down in their 30s might have to look a little harder for their future husband. Data from the Census Bureau shows the percent of never married American males drastically decreases, not surprisingly, among men ages 35–44. The data represents the entire United Staes male population and is broken down into the following age groups:
15–19 years old
20–34 years old
35–44 years old
45–54 years old
55–64 years old
65 and older
To get this information, I found research from the American Community Survey on the United States Census Bureau website. The study looked at the marital status of everyone in America broken down by sex, age group and race. I narrowed down the research and focused on the percent of never-married males by age group.
From the chart you can see that, predictably, almost all males between the ages of 15–19 have never been married. Starting at 35, the number of never married men significantly decreases and continues to decrease with age, which again, is no surprise. Those looking for a partner who has never said “I do” will have to be a little more open minded as they get older.
Research from the Census Bureau website shows the percentage of the United States population with bachelor’s degrees. Information is broken down by major, ethnicity and state. After cleaning up the data and narrowing it down, I focused on what percent of Americans have a bachelor’s degree in business. As you can see, business is a popular undergrad major in many states, especially in Florida, Georgia and Alabama.
Interested if there was a correlation between the top undergraduate business programs and the popularity of business majors in states with the best business schools, I looked at the US News and World Report rankings. It’s interesting to note that the University of Pennsylvania has the top undergrad business program, but had fewer citizens with a degree in business.
While nothing could be determined from this, you could hypothesize about different reasons why this would occur. For instance, maybe most students who receive a BA in business from UPenn move away after college.
The data doesn’t give you the full story of why certain states are made up of more business-minded people than others, it does give a good starting point that you can delve into by looking at schools and the top industries in each state.
On its own, data can appear boring, but it helps to tell a story and to show the implications of research on our daily lives and on a broader trend or social level.
