Wild & Wacky Stats!

[Brittain33]

I found it very odd that on the twin map, there is such a concentration of states in the Northeast with abnormally high ratios of twins. The map I made doesn't do full justice; almost every state in the Northeast was in the top ten, while the West was fairly devoid of twins.

It's a measure of affluent families using fertility treatments. National Geographic profiled the upper middle class suburb of Bridgewater, NJ in their old Zip code feature because of the extraordinary number of multiple births.

[Brittain33]

Why not affluent areas of the West?  Less social pressure?

That's a good question. Some thoughts:

States with larger immigrant populations, particularly immigrants from lower economic strata than those that make up northeastern immigrant communities, are going to have a lot more of their children in the population. NJ has a large immigrant population, but many of them come to the U.S. with college degrees or an ethos of putting off children, and like CT it has a small urban:suburban ratio.

The northeast not only has more affluent families, but people marry later and women tend to work longer before starting families. My sister in NJ was 29 when she had her first son and she was the first of any of her friends to become a mother. Of the people I know, very few had children in their 20s and plan for them in their 30s. I suspect the situation is different in middle-class areas like north Dallas or Mesa, AZ.

I should find the National Geographic article.

[Brittain33]

Starbucks doing better than Wal*Mart even in Utah. Wow.

[Brittain33]

We need to put some more federal prisons in Alaska.  That'd probably serve as somewhat of a deterrent.  lol.

Yes, the one thing Alaska and its government need is yet another form of rent-seeking.

[Brittain33]

How do you measure taxation by state? It looks like combined federal and state per capita in absolute dollars, not state alone, and not as a percentage of income.

[Brittain33]

I have no idea what to make of those numbers. None.

1. Farmers
2. Middle-class professionals

as opposed to

3. Economically depressed areas with no jobs to spare (Appalachia, mitigating in N.Y., Penn., Michigan)
4. Places with lots of construction (I have no idea if that's causation, but what else links California, Florida, and Arizona?)
4a. Duh. Retirees.

[Brittain33]

Regarding farmers, brittain, are you saying that the Midwest has high employment rate of both spouses because of couples that live/work on farms?

My understanding is that most people who have farms need to work jobs off of the farm in order to make a living year round. I would imagine this means wives have to work, too, especially if part of the year the husband is investing energy in the farm without short-term reward.

But then again, how many people are still living in farms in some of those places?

[Brittain33]

My regional energy provider is planning to offer wind power from Maine this summer. I wonder if they're transmitting from Canada or the project came on line too recently for these data.

[Brittain33]

I doubt it's too accurate. The states with the most dry counties should have the lowest alcohol consumption rate.

Isn't that a bit like arguing that the states with the strictest abstinence-only sex ed should have the lowest teen pregnancy rates?