NC in Focus: The Sex Gap in Postsecondary Attainment

Nationally, 46% of women aged 25-64 reported having an associate degree or higher in 2017 compared to 39% of men, a gap of seven percentage points. In North Carolina, this gap was even larger: 48% of women had an associate degree or higher compared to 38% of men, a gap of 10 percentage points.Compared to men, North Carolina women are more likely to report the completion of an associate degree (11.9% vs. 8.3%), bachelor’s (23.3% vs. 20.1%), or master’s (9.8% vs. 6.8%) degree. Men are slightly more likely than women to hold a professional degree (1.8% vs. 1.7%) or a doctorate (1.3% vs. 1.1%).

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NC in Focus: Increasing Educational Attainment

By on 12.10.15 in Education

With the release of the 2010-2014 American Community Survey estimates last week, data users can now compare two non-overlapping five year time periods. One trend apparent in the data is the steady increase in educational attainment: between 2005-2009 and 2010-2014, the percentage of the population age 25 or older with a bachelor’s degree or higher increased in 1,000 of the nation’s 3,142 counties. Among North Carolinians ages 25 and older, 27.8% had a bachelor’s degree…

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“Brain Gain” in North Carolina Metros

“America’s shrinking cities are widely viewed to be suffering from a “brain drain”—the flight of highly educated residents to other, more hospitable locales—that is crippling these cities’ economic competitiveness. While such cities have many problems, brain drain as popularly conceived is not one of them. Indeed, the conventional wisdom on brain drain and declining human capital in shrinking U.S. metropolitan areas is largely a myth: brain gain, not drain, is the reality…. …even major U.S.…

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NC in Focus: Children of Immigrants

By on 5.8.14 in Migration

Between 2006 and 2011, growth in the U.S. population of children ages 0 to 17 was entirely due to growth in the number of children born to at least one immigrant parent. Over these 5 years, the population of children of immigrants grew 1.5 million, from 15.7 to 17.2 million. Nationally, the population of children of native-born parents fell slightly over this time period, from 55.6 to 55.0 million. In North Carolina, these trends are…

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