Principled Innovation LLC

300,000,000

October 17th, 2006

According the U.S. Census Bureau, the United States reached a population of 300,000,000 people at the precise moment I published this post this morning. It took just under 39 years for America to grow from a population of 200 million in November 1967 to today’s new milestone. (For comparison, world population grew by 3 billion over the same period.)

The Census Bureau provides some other comparative data that make it absolutely crystal clear just how much our country has changed during a period that is only a few months longer than my lifetime. Among the most compelling items:

Number of people age 65 and older

2006: 36.8 million
1967: 19.1 million

Median age of the U.S. population

2006: 36.2
1967: 29.5

Life expectancy at birth

2006: 77.8 years
1967: 70.5 years

Immigration

2006: 34.3 million foreign-born people
(12 percent of the total population/Mexico is the leading country of origin)
1967: 9.7 million foreign-born people.
(5 percent of the total population/Italy was the leading country of origin)

Median age at first marriage for men and women (respectively)

2006: 27.1 and 25.8
1967: 23.1 and 20.6

Average household size

2006: 2.6 people
1967: 3.3 people

America is a much older and far more diverse country today. We are living longer, delaying marriage and we have had fewer children in the last four decades, which is one factor that explains the drop in average household size. These statistics confirm that demographic shift is well underway, and it is forging a new society with which association leaders must come to terms. Moreover, we need to ask an even more fundamental question: where will we go from here? The answers provided by the data are clear, but the strategic implications for our organizations continue to unfold, and we must open ourselves to all of the possibilities.

Entry Filed under: Principled Innovation Blog, What's New?, Social Media, Innovation, Associations, Extreme Makeover, The Association Innovator