Demography

In a recent post I discussed the level of annual salary in several categories for North Dakota and some of the implications. I also discussed the rank for the overall average salary. As many of my students would likely think, there is a need to make a correction to those numbers. There are two things that can vary for those annual salary numbers, the distribution of the workforce and the compensation by occupational category. Continue reading More on North Dakota Wages—Standardized Comparisons

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Americans Are Dying Younger, Saving Corporations Billions – Bloomberg

This is a really important article for businesses, but especially those in North Dakota. With a long reputation of "greying faster than the country as a whole" it raises the question of whether businesses in the state, or the state, would reap similar (potential) benefits. The simple fact is that we continue to see errors made in terms of benefit contributions and shortfalls in pensions, even in North Dakota. We can do the math better and we should.

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For those that question the impact of the oil boom, I offer up this post on birth rates. Now the answers are not quite as obvious as you might expect. It is probably important that you recall my earlier post about the net migration by county for North Dakota (found here). The beginning year for our look at birth rates is 2011 where we see the leaders in birth rates are counties with sizable Native American populations. There is, as yet, no boom in the Bakken area, and there is a remarkable degree of consistency as far as rates across the state.

Continue reading ND Births By County, 2011-16

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I am teaching demographic methods, population analysis, whatever you want to call it this summer. The class title is not the really important thing to me, it is more a matter of content. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for accurate titles, but neither title is deceptive and most people have no idea what it is anyway regardless of the title.
With that in mind I thought I would include a few maps from my recent presentation at the state demographics conference. I gave the morning keynote address and talked about the basics of some of the demographic changes as well as the implications of those changes. The following series of maps is pretty important confirmation of what happened in North Dakota.

It will be really important to pay attention to the color scale on these maps. The lighter the color the higher the amount of net migration per 1,000 people in the population. Net migration is the amount of inflow less the amount of outflow, so higher numbers imply a higher local population, at least due to the migration aspects.

Clearly we see the impacts of the oil boom here. Enormously positive net migration into western North Dakota, particularly the Bakken region was the norm in 2011 and 2012.

Continue reading (Repost) Net migration in North Dakota

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