Demography

As part of my construction of a population projection for North Dakota my reading and data analysis focused significantly on demographic data and trends in North Dakota. One of my concerns with trends in North Dakota is that with a low population base even moderate flows will lead to rate changes and possible adjustments in trends. The other issue for North Dakota is that the proximity to a larger neighbor in Minnesota can somewhat complicate the analysis. For example, this graph. 

Continue reading Migration in and out of North Dakota
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Replacement was another idea we talked about in the population analysis class this week. Essentially it is an estimate of the deaths and migratory outflows from the area over a specified period of time and is called replacement because it is what you would need to replace in order for population to remain the same. Not really terribly complicated, but it is a nice complement to the idea of turnover and I generated both the level and the rate for counties in North Dakota.

Continue reading Population Replacement in North Dakota

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I am teaching population analysis to the undergraduates this year which is a first for me and them. We talked about the simple calculation of growth rates and how population change is actually more complicated and subtle than an overall population growth rate. This got us to the idea of turnover, that is just measuring the births, deaths, inflows, and outflows that go into the changing population. Basically just seeing how much is changing compared to the overall population level. So I thought I would have some fun and apply this to North Dakota. This could be especially important given that some North Dakota counties experienced high degrees of population change due to economic circumstances.

Continue reading Population Turnover in North Dakota

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With all the discussion surrounding migration these last many months I thought it time to revisit the issue with a specific look at North Dakota. There are many ways to evaluate this issue and I will not go through them all here in one post. These are things that need to be evaluated independently. The issue in this post is the thought that North Dakota has a problem attracting in people. As this first map reveals, that is not really the case. 

Continue reading International Migration and North Dakota

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