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The Growing Diversity of America’s Children and Youth
Ken Johnson narrates this presentation which summarizes research published in Population and Development Review as "Growing Diversity among America's Children and Youth: Spatial and Temporal Dimensions."
UNH demographer tells the nation’s evolving story
Tell demographer Ken Johnson the county you live in and he can tell you a lot about your town, your state, and how that place has changed over past decades.
Pair up Johnson with Haya El Nasser, demographic reporter for USA Today, and she’ll take Johnson’s data and find story angles to boggle the minds of USA Today’s 3.1 million readers.
Recently El Nasser incorporated Johnson’s research on declining fertility into a story about Levittown, Pennsylvania, where, in 1960, Helen Bachman gave birth to one of her five children. That year 15 other children were born on the same block, and the local obstetrician was so busy he often slept in his car. Bachman, now 64, still lives in her old neighborhood but notes that today “out of 75 houses on the street, maybe 15 might have kids.”
“My goal is always to discover and tell the story of the nation, because the nation changes,” El Nasser says, “We’re changing in so many different facets and ways. Once I understand the story, then I’ll find people whose lives are emblematic of that data to give life to those numbers.
“What I like about working with Ken,” she says, “is that he’s very exact with the data but very understanding of our needs in the media.”
“I'm a demographer,” Johnson says, “and an academic. I lay out the numbers. Reporters aren’t talking to me because they want a point of view. They want someone who will tell them the factual story. That’s why they call me.”
El Nasser is not the only reporter who depends on Johnson for facts and insight. Last year, in addition to USA Today, Johnson was quoted more than 2,000 times in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, and numerous other newspapers. He has also been interviewed on ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News, CNN, BBC, and National Public Radio.
Johnson loves to make the numbers come alive for others. As a professor of sociology, he teaches both undergraduate statistics and graduate courses in demography and statistics. “A lot of undergraduates come in to statistics classes reluctantly. It’s usually a requirement,” Johnson says. “I’ll say to them, ‘some of you are going to find out that you really like this stuff.’ And, you know what, they do. You can see it when they compare their hometowns to others. They can see how the nation is changing.”
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