1941: Census Of The United States

Race and Nativity.

The 1940 census returns indicate no considerable change as compared with 1930 in the racial classification of the population of the United States. Both in 1940 and in 1930 89.8 per cent of the population was white. In 1940, 9.8 per cent was Negro, as compared with 9.7 per cent in 1930; and 0.4 per cent was of other nonwhite races, as compared with 0.5 per cent in 1930. The rate of increase in the white population between 1930 and 1940 was 7.2 per cent, this rate being the same (to the nearest tenth of one per cent) as for the total population. The Negro population increased 8.2 per cent during the same period, and the other races collectively showed a decrease of 1.4 per cent.

In the nativity composition of the white population there was, however, a very considerable change during the past decade. The foreign-born white population decreased from 13,983,405 to 11,419,138, a decrease of 18.3 per cent, while the native white population increased by 10.9 per cent — a rate, it may be noted, materially higher than that shown for the Negroes. The main reasons for the rapid decline in the number of foreign born are two, namely, the practical cessation of immigration, and the rather high mortality rates prevailing among the foreign born because of their relatively high average age.

Perhaps the most important of the changes in the minor nonwhite races was a decrease of from 138,834 to 126,947, or 8.6 per cent, in the Japanese population. Of the total Japanese population in 1940, 47,305, or somewhat more than one-third, were foreign born (for the most part born in Japan), and therefore alien and ineligible for citizenship. The remainder were classified as native on the basis of birth in the United States or in some one of its territories and possessions. Nearly nine-tenths of all the Japanese in the United States were in the three Pacific Coast States; in fact, 93,717, or nearly three-quarters of the total, were in California alone and 23,321, or about one-quarter of the California total, were in the city of Los Angeles. In addition there were 157,905 Japanese in Hawaii, including 37,353 foreign born, and in the Philippine Islands about 30,000 foreign born plus an unrecorded number born in the Islands.

Sex.

The numbers of males and females in the population of the United States are rapidly approaching equality. In 1910, partly as the result of the recent arrival of large numbers of European immigrants, who were then predominantly male, there were 106.0 males per 100 females in the population of Continental United States. By 1920 the sex ratio had declined to 104.0 and by 1930 to 102.5. The 1940 tabulation shows 66,061,592 males and 65,607,683 females, or 100.7 males per 100 females; or to state the situation in another way, there were in 1940 only 453,909 more males than females, as compared with an excess of 1,499,114 in 1930.

Age.

With respect to age, also, the 1940 figures record another stage in a long-time trend in the population of the United States. Our population is definitely growing older. The median age in 1940 was 29.0 years, as compared with 26.4 years in 1930. The number of persons under 15 was actually smaller by 3,084,795, or 8.6 per cent, in 1940 than in 1930, while the number of persons 65 years old and over was larger in 1940 than in 1930 by 2,385,509, or 36.0 per cent.

These changes in the age composition result from a declining birth rate on the one hand and, on the other, from improved mortality conditions which enable more persons to survive to the higher ages. If present trends continue, the median age may be expected to rise still further and the number and proportion of older persons will increase as the number and proportion of young persons decrease.

Country of Birth of the Foreign Born.

The total number of foreign-born white persons in the United States in 1940 was materially less, as already indicated, than in 1930. The number of German born in the country decreased from 1,608,814 in 1930 to 1,237,772 in 1940, or 23.1 per cent; and the number of Italian born from 1,790,424 to 1,623,580, or 9.3 per cent. The more rapid decrease in the German born probably results from the much higher average age of that group as compared with the Italian born.

Education.

One of the new questions on the 1940 census schedule calls for the number of years of school completed by each person enumerated. The first tabulation of these returns was limited to persons 25 years old and over in order to avoid the complications involved in the interpretation of this information for persons who might still be in school. Later tabulations will be made for younger persons, giving the number of grades of school completed in combination with school attendance.

The median number of school years completed by the entire population 25 years old and over was 8.4; for the native white population, 8.8; for the foreign-born white. 7.3; and for the Negro, 5.7. Of the whole number of persons 25 years old and over, 3.7 per cent reported that they had not completed so much as one grade of school, and an additional 9.8 per cent that they had completed less than 5 years.

On the other hand, 3,407,331 persons, or 4.6 per cent of the whole number 25 years old and over, reported that they had completed 4 or more years of college. (This does not represent the whole number of college graduates, since there are in addition considerable numbers of college graduates under 25 years of age.) A still larger number (4,075,183) had completed from 1 to 3 years of college; 10,551,681 had completed 4 years of high school (but no college); and 11,181,995 had completed from 1 to 3 years of high school. Including those who had completed 1 or more years of college work, there were about 18,000,000 persons 25 years old and over, or 24.1 per cent of the total, who had completed the high school course.

Employment Status.

In the 1940 census, all persons 14 years old and over were classified according to their relation to the labor force during the week preceding the census date. The major classification was one separating the 52,789,499 persons in the labor force from the 48,313,425 persons not in the labor force. Within the labor force itself there were distinguished 45,166,083 persons employed in private or nonemergency governmental work; 2,529,606 persons on public emergency work (WPA, NYA, CCC, etc.); and 5,093,810 persons seeking work. Those seeking work included, in addition to persons with previous work experience, 767,341 new workers, that is, persons seeking work for the first time. The population 14 years old and over not in the labor force, which comprised 10,609,508 males and 37,703,917 females, was likewise subdivided into various significant categories. These should be considered separately for males and females. The most important subdivisions for the males were those in school, numbering 4,593,630, and those unable to work, who numbered 2,966,225. For females not in the labor force, by far the largest class was made up of those engaged in housework in their own homes, who formed more than three-quarters of the total.

Occupation.

Here again, as in respect to the work status classifications, there are radical differences in the distribution of the male and the female workers. Professional workers formed 12.3 per cent of all employed females, as compared with 4.4 per cent of employed males — mainly because of the large numbers of female teachers. On the other hand, farmers, craftsmen, and laborers both farm and non-farm formed very much larger percentages of the male workers than of the female. Clerical and sales workers formed 28.3 per cent of the female workers and only 12.8 per cent of the male. Factory operatives formed about the same percentage for both male and female workers, while domestic service workers were predominantly female.

1940 Census Reports.

The 1940 count of the population is now (February 1942) available in the form of a series of state bulletins, with a summary for the United States, which are being bound together to form Volume I of the Sixteenth Census Reports on Population. Statistics of the population classified according to various characteristics, such as color, sex, and age, employment status, and major occupation group, are being presented in a second series of bulletins, one for each state, and a summary bulletin for the United States, almost all of which are already available. Still other series give selected items from the Census of Housing for areas as small as city blocks; more extensive housing data for counties, cities, and townships; and selected population and housing data for census tracts in 61 cities. See also VITAL STATISTICS.

1940: Census of the United States, 1940

The Census of Population has been taken in the United States every ten years since 1790. The census was established by the Constitution, primarily to furnish a basis for the apportionment of representatives in the lower house of Congress among the States. Even the first census, however, provided some classification of the population (by age, sex, and color) in addition to the count of the total number of persons, and in almost every subsequent census there have been further additions to the list of items of information obtained. During this 150-year period the one small octavo volume adequate to contain the results of the first Census, with its brief classifications, grew by 1930 to a series of nine rather large volumes, which will be expanded to 12 to 15 volumes by the census of 1940.

Population of the Nation.

The population of Continental United States on April 1, 1940, as returned in the Sixteenth Decennial Census, was 131,669,275. In comparison with the 1930 population of 122,775,046, this figure represents an increase of 8,894,229, or 7.2 per cent. This percentage is less than one-half the rate of increase shown in any previous decade since the census was established.

The growth during each decade up to 1860 was around 35 per cent; then for three decades up to 1890 it was about 25 per cent; subsequently percentages of increase became irregularly smaller, to 16.1 in 1930; and between 1930 and 1940 occurred the very marked decline just noted. It is evident from these figures, supplemented by the records of births and deaths, that the United States is faced with a stationary or even a declining population within the next 30 or 40 years. This rather abrupt slowing down in the rate of population growth is the result of two powerful factors coming into operation at the same time, namely, the rapidly falling birth rate and the virtual stoppage of immigration from abroad. In 1921 the officially recorded birth rate in the United States was 24.2 per thousand of the population. In 1936 this figure had declined to 16.7 and since that date it has increased only slightly. The absolute number of births in the United States in 1921 (including estimates for states not then in the registration area) was 2,522,000; the number had fallen by 1936 to 2,145,000, or more than 15 per cent. Immigration from foreign countries contributed about 3,000,000 to the increase in the population of the United States between 1920 and 1930, whereas between 1930 and 1940 the number of persons who left this country for foreign lands exceeded by almost 50,000 the number who entered the United States.

The entire increase in population during the last decade, therefore, comes from the natural increase, that is, the excess of births over deaths. This in itself represents a marked change in the pattern of our population growth, since the contribution of immigration to population increase has been very considerable in every earlier decade, especially from 1850.

Urban and Rural Population.

One classification of the population for which the initial census count provides data is that which separates the urban population from the rural. As applied to the 1940 returns, this classification shows an urban population of 74,421,123, or 56.5 per cent of the total, the remainder constituting the rural population.

Urban population is defined by the Census Bureau as, in general, that residing in cities and other incorporated places having 2,500 inhabitants or more, the remainder of the population being designated as rural. Special provision is made for including in the urban population certain places, mainly in New England, whose general characteristics are essentially urban, even though they do not have the corporate form under which similar places in other states are organized. This definition of urban population was set up in essentially its present form at the census of 1910, and has provided a very satisfactory basis for the numerical measurement of city population and country population. Figures representing the urban population back to 1880 were published in the 1910 reports. Since 1930 the classification has been carried still further back, so that figures are now available for urban and rural population on the basis of the 1930 definition from the beginning of the census series.

The proportion of the population that was urban in 1790 was very small, being only 5.1 per cent. Further, this percentage did not begin to increase very rapidly until about 1850, on which date it stood at 15.3. From that time on, however, it increased rapidly, until at some time between 1910 and 1920, the urban population became larger than the rural.

Even though the urban population in the early decades was relatively small, its percentage increase, as shown by every census (except 1820) down to 1930, was far greater than the increase in the rural population. In the decade 1920-1930, for example, the urban population increased 27.3 per cent while the rural population increased only 4.4 per cent. Between 1930 and 1940, however, this relationship radically changed, and while the rate of urban growth during this decade was still somewhat higher than the rate of growth in the rural population, it was only a little larger — 7.9 per cent as compared with 6.4 per cent. Without doubt this was partly the result of conditions growing out of the depression, but it may indicate that the period of rapid urbanization is at an end, and that the population of the future will be spread more evenly over the land, and to a less extent concentrated in the urban centers.

A further subdivision of the urban population is that into groups based on the size of the constituent cities. In 1940 cities of 100,000 or more represented a slightly smaller percentage of the total population than in 1930 — 289 per cent as compared with 29.6 per cent. There were, however, only 92 cities in this group in 1940 as compared with 93 in 1930. (Three cities, namely, El Paso, Lynn, and Evansville, dropped out of the list during the decade, and two new cities, namely, Sacramento and Charlotte, were added.) For the most part there was very little change in the percentage represented by each of the city size groups between 1930 and 1940, and changes that did occur were partly the result of a varying increase in the number of places.

Another classification, not available at the time of writing, separates the rural population into rural non-farm and rural farm. The rural farm classification, however, will not account for more than two-thirds of the population outside incorporated places, the remainder representing persons living in unincorporated villages and in the open country, but not on farms. (It should be noted also that a part of the rural farm population will be found living within the limits of rural incorporated places.)

Population by States.

The District of Columbia, with an increase of 36.2 per cent, grew faster between 1930 and 1940 than any of the states. The fastest growing state was Florida, with an increase of 29.2 per cent, followed by New Mexico, with 25.6 per cent, and California, with 21.7 per cent. Six states, namely, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Vermont, lost population between 1930 and 1940. The first five of these states are located in the Great Plains and constitute a tier of states in the Dust Bowl extending from Canada to Texas. In no previous decade have more than three states lost population. Most states grew more slowly between 1930 and 1940 than between 1920 and 1930. Montana, however, reversed a decline between 1920 and 1930 and shows a small increase for the past ten years. Delaware, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Virginia have grown more rapidly in the past decade than in the preceding one.

In absolute amount, the increase of population in California was considerably greater than in any other state, being 1,230,136 as compared with 891,076 in New York, the next state in this respect. In ten other states, namely, Texas, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Louisiana, Ohio, and Virginia, the increase in population between 1930 and 1940 exceeded 250,000.

Taking the states in large groups, it may be noted that all of the Northern States, which had nearly 60 per cent of the 1930 population, had only about one-third of the increase between 1930 and 1940. The Southern States, however, which had less than 31 per cent of the 1930 population, show nearly 43 per cent of the increase; and the Western States, comprising the Mountain and Pacific Divisions, which had less than 10 per cent of the 1930 population, show more than 22 per cent of the increase.

It may be noted that practically all of the industrial states show a rate of increase less than the national average, and that even if the Dust Bowl States, with actual decreases in population, were omitted, the four Northern Divisions would still show a much smaller fraction of the increase than they had of the actual population either in 1930 or 1940. To some extent, the relatively more rapid rate of increase in the Southern States is the result of their higher birth rates, coupled with the fact that, under present employment conditions, a much larger fraction of their population increase has probably remained within these states than in recent previous decades. The increase on the Pacific Coast probably represents the continued settlement and development of new territory, since these states represent the last of the well watered lands to be occupied in Continental United States. The especially rapid growth in California is presumably attributable also to the tendency of certain elements of the population to migrate to areas of a warmer climate, this same tendency probably explaining also the rapid growth in Florida.

Apportionment of Representatives.

One of the important functions — perhaps still the most important single function — which the census serves is that of providing a basis for the reapportionment of representation in the House of Representatives. Such a reapportionment has been made by Congress following each census except that of 1920. In the law providing for the Census of 1930, provisions were made under which, if Congress does not act within a specified time, reapportionment on the basis of the new census goes into effect without specific legislation. This law requires that the President submit to Congress at the first session subsequent to the Decennial Census a statement showing the new population of each state and the number of representatives to which each state would be entitled on the basis of these figures, (a) under the method of apportionment last used, (b) under the method known as 'major fractions,' and (c) under the method known as 'equal proportions.' Since the method last used was that of major fractions, this means that for 1940 the apportionment was worked out by the two methods specifically mentioned above. Under the method of major fractions the state of California gains three representatives, and seven other states, namely, Arizona, Florida, Michigan, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, and Tennessee each gain one. To balance these gains, since the number of representatives in the House is not to be changed, the following ten states each lose one representative, namely, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania. The apportionment under the method of equal proportions differs in only one respect from that just outlined, namely, that Michigan and Arkansas keep their present number of representatives instead of gaining one and losing one, respectively.

Individual Cities of 100,000 or More.

New York remained the largest city in the United States by a wide margin over Chicago. Twenty-eight of the cities lost population between 1930 and 1940 as compared with only four of the same cities between 1920 and 1930. These cities, Fall River and Lowell, Mass., and Wilmington, Del., reversed declines observed between 1920 and 1930 and showed some increase in the last decade. Only one city, Washington, D. C., grew more rapidly between 1930 and 1940 than between 1920 and 1930.

The most rapid growth between 1930 and 1940 occurred in Miami, Fla., which increased by 55.6 per cent. San Diego, Calif. (37.4 per cent) and Washington, D. C. (36.2 per cent), were second and third, respectively. It may be noted that no city of 100,000 or more in the Northeast increased as much as 12 per cent, and only one (Gary, Ind.) as much as 8 per cent.

Families.

In place of the count of dwellings and families which has formed a part of previous censuses, the 1940 census will present (from the Housing Census) counts of structures and dwelling units, the latter subdivided into occupied and vacant. The number of structures will correspond rather closely with the number of dwellings shown in earlier censuses, and the number of occupied dwelling units will correspond very closely with the number of families shown in 1930. Tabulations of the 1940 returns for families will be available in 1941, but most of the classifications which were in widest demand from the 1930 family tabulations will be presented solely or mainly on the basis of occupied dwelling units. These classifications will include tenure, value or rent of occupied dwelling units (which will correspond very closely with the classification of families by value or rent of home of the 1930 reports), size of household, and color or race of head of household.

The whole number of occupied dwelling units reported in 1940 was 34,772,673 (preliminary, to be revised). On the basis of this figure the average population per occupied dwelling unit in the United States in 1940 was 3.8, which may be compared with an average population per family of 4.1 in 1930.

This general decline in the number of persons per family between 1930 and 1940 appears in the statistics for every state, and because of it the increase in the number of families, not only in the United States but in every state, was considerably greater, on a percentage basis, than the increase in population.

Coverage of the 1940 Census.

The results of the counts of population and housing units have been made public in a series of processed releases which give the 1940 population data for all of the political units, including states, counties, cities, and other incorporated places, townships, and other corresponding subdivisions of counties in the United States, and the housing data (occupied and vacant dwelling units) for states, counties, and incorporated places of 2,500 or more. All of the more detailed classifications of population including color, sex, age, work status, occupation, industry, etc., and for housing units (in addition to those named above), various classifications based on such items as plumbing and heating equipment, mortgage status of home, etc., are being obtained from the tabulation of punched cards, and are to be published first in several series of state bulletins and later summarized in general reports arranged by subjects. Some classified data will be presented from the housing census for city blocks in the larger cities, for townships or corresponding areas, and for rural incorporated places. Population classified by sex, color, nativity, and age, will be shown for townships and incorporated places between 1,000 and 2,500. Classification in greater detail, the detail increasing with the size of the area, will be presented for the larger incorporated places, for counties, and for states, while some complex combinations of classifications may be presented for the United States alone. The compilation of the various census reports is expected to be completed by the end of the year 1942.

See also VITAL STATISTICS.