Specific guidelines:You’ll find age-sex breakdowns for cities/towns in the U.S. at the American Fact Finder area of the Census Bureau, WWW.census.gov. (Click the American Fact Finder button at the bottom of the screen listed under the “Find Data” section. Under the “Community Facts” section type in “Boston, MA.” Access the data file listed under “2015 American Community Survey” titled “Demographic and Housing Estimates (Age, Sex, Race, Households and Housing,…).” Play around a bit at this website to see what data are available and how to navigate. If you scroll down a bit for each data page, you’ll find the age cohorts are aggregated into more meaningful categories; this information might provide some hints on how to answer the questions below. Of course, you can also aggregate the data yourself!Assignment components:
1.A single table that shows the percentages of age/sex distributions for Boston and Framing ham. This can be a printed spreadsheet, or typed into a word-processing table. Do NOT just cut and paste the webpages you used; take the time to format the data correctly into a table that allows comparisons to be made between the geographical regions. Presentation matters!be sure to label all axes of your tables.
Throughout your essay, refer to your table as necessary. (A graphic should never stand alone in a paper; always use it to help make your argument in the text. If you don’t refer to it, you don’t need it in your paper!)
2.A brief essay (suggested 2-3 pages, double spaced) that addresses the following issues:a.Are there significant differences in gender distribution between Boston and Framing ham? You will have to think a bit about what “significant” means here. If there ARE significant differences, what might cause them?
b.Are there significant differences in age distribution between Boston and Framing ham? Again, the question of “what is significant” is relevant. If there ARE significant differences, what might cause them?
c.Sketch out for yourself (or just mentally visualize; we don’t really have the Blackboard tools for you to submit this to me, alas) population pyramids for the two places. Using this visual clue, what changes in society will be necessary to accommodate the population of your place in 10 years??
You don’t have to be comprehensive; choose a couple of the most obvious ones and discuss them.
d.Make sure your essay has a topic statement, supporting data, and a conclusion. (In other words, don’t just leave answers to a-c hanging out there in the ether. Give them some context and reason-for-being
