June Census Data Analysis
I-News Census Analysis Highlights
The number of same sex couples in Colorado jumped 60 percent over the past decade – triple the growth rate of all households in the state – with almost one fourth of the couples raising children. 
The latest release of 2010 data from the U.S. Census Bureau also showed that minority households bore the brunt of the decline in homeownership in the state, and that the age gap between whites and minorities generally widened since 2000.
Also, Colorado has about 600 centenarians, up slightly from a decade ago.
The latest Census information released Wednesday night includes household, age and homeownership information by race and ethnicity from the 2010 Census count.
It shows:
- The number of same-sex couples jumped more than 60 percent in Colorado over the decade, from about 10,000 to about 16,000. That is three times the 19 percent overall growth in all Colorado households. About 23 percent – or almost one in four – is raising children under 18 years of age. Same-sex couples now make up eight of every 1,000 households in Colorado, up from six a decade ago.
- The number of unmarried male and female couples also skyrocketed, jumping 37 percent to 111,339 households – a growth rate about twice the state average. One in three is raising children.
- Black and Latino households saw the biggest declines in homeownership during a decade marked by one of the state’s worst recessions. Homeownership among black households fell almost four percentage points to 40.9 percent, while Latino homeownership fell about two and a half percentage points to 48.3 percent. By contrast, white homeownership dropped less than a percentage point to 70.4 percent and Asian homeownership rose by three percentage points to 60 percent.
- Latino and Asian residents had the highest percentage of traditional married couple families with children – both exceeding 30 percent of all households. Black and white residents had the lowest percentages – about 17 percent and 20 percent, respectively. Blacks still had the highest percent of households headed by single women with children – 13.3 percent of Black households – but the percent was down significantly from 15.3 percent in 2000.
- Blacks had the highest percentage of people living alone – 32 percent, followed by whites at about 30 percent. Latinos had the lowest percent – 18.5 percent.
- For the first time, the Census Bureau released the number of households that had three or more generations living under the same roof. In Colorado, they totaled 63,652 households or about 2 percent of all households in the state. Latinos had the highest percent – 7.9 percent.
- The 2010 Census showed a large age gap between white and minority residents in the state, as the aging of the baby boomers is a mostly white phenomenon. Whites only accounted for 55 percent of the children younger than 5 years of age, but 85 percent of the state’s 65 and over population. Overall, whites make up 70 percent of Colorado’s population. As a result, about one in seven white residents was 65 or older compared to only one in 20 Latino residents, the state’s second largest ethnicity. By contrast, one in 10 Latinos was younger than five years of age, compared to one in 20 whites.
- Median ages also varied dramatically by ethnicity. They ranged from a low of 19.2 years for residents describing themselves as two or more races, to 40.3 years for white residents.
- The number of 100-year-olds in Colorado showed modest increases during the decade, rising 12 percent to 593. That is below the overall state population increase of more than 16 percent. The number of residents 110 years of age and above actually declined from 12 to 5 during the decade.
Census data shows that the majority of older Coloradans are white while the youngest are minorities. (Photo by Joe Mahoney/I-News)
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