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By Richard Fry, Ruth Igielnik and Eileen Patten

The past five decades — spanning from the time when the Silent Generation (today, in their 70s and 80s) was entering adulthood to the adulthood of today’s Millennials — have seen large shifts in U.S. society and culture. It has been a period during which Americans, especially Millennials, have become more detached from major institutions such as political parties, religion, the military and marriage. At the same time, the racial and ethnic make-up of the country has changed, college attainment has spiked and women have greatly increased their participation in the nation’s workforce.

Our new interactive graphic compares the generations today and in the years that each generation was young (ages 21 to 36) to demonstrate the sea change in young adults’ activities and experiences that has occurred over the past 50 years.

Our analysis finds several distinctive ways that Millennials stand out when compared with the Silent Generation, a group of Americans old enough to be grandparents to many Millennials:

1. Today’s young adults (Millennials ages 21 to 36 in 2017) are much better educated than the Silent Generation. The educational trajectory of young women across the generations has been especially steep. Among Silent Generation women, only 9% had completed at least four years of college when they were young. By comparison, Millennial women are four times (36%) as likely as their Silent predecessors were to have at least a bachelor’s degree at the same age. Educational gains are not limited to women, as Millennial men are also better educated than earlier generations of young men. Three-in-ten Millennial men (29%) have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with 15% of their young Silent counterparts. These higher levels of educational attainment at ages 21 to 36 suggest that Millennials — especially Millennial women — are on track to be our most educated generation by the time they complete their educational journeys.

2. A greater share of Millennial women have a bachelor’s degree than their male counterparts — a reversal from the Silent Generation. In the past half-century, growing shares of both men and women have earned a bachelor’s degree. However, women have made bigger gains over the period. Among Millennials ages 21 to 36 in 2017, women are 7 percentage points more likely than men to have finished at least a bachelor’s degree (36% vs. 29%). Back when Silents were ages 21 to 36, women were 6 points less likely than men to have finished at least four years of college education. Gen Xers were the first generation of women to outpace men in educational attainment, with a 3-percentage-point advantage among Gen X women ages 21 to 36. By comparison, the Baby Boom generation was the most recent in which men were better educated than women, having a 2-point advantage over young Boomer women.

3. Young women today are much more likely to be working, compared with Silent Generation women during their young adult years. In 1965, when Silent women were young, a majority (58%) were not participating in the labor force and 40% were employed. Among Millennials, that pattern has flipped. Today, 71% of young Millennial women are employed, while 26% are not in the labor force. This shift to more women in the workplace occurred as early as 1985, when Boomers were young. Then, nearly seven-in-ten young Boomer women (66%) were employed and 29% were not in the labor force.

4. Millennials today are more than three times as likely to have never married as Silents were when they were young. About six-in-ten Millennials (57%) have never been married, reflecting broader societal shifts toward marriage later in life. In 1965, the typical American woman first married at age 21 and the typical man wed at 23. By 2017, those figures climbed to 27 for women and 29.5 for men. When members of the Silent Generation were the same age as Millennials are now, just 17% had never been married. Still, about two-thirds of never-married Millennials (65%) say they would like to get married someday. When asked the reasons they have not gotten married, 29% say they are not financially prepared, while 26% say they have not found someone who has the qualities they are looking for; an additional 26% say they are too young and not ready to settle down.

5. Millennials are much more likely to be racial or ethnic minorities than were members of the Silent Generation. Fifty years ago, America was less racially and ethnically diverse than it is today. Large-scale immigration from Asia and Latin America, the rise of racial intermarriage and differences in fertility patterns across racial and ethnic groups have contributed to Millennials being more racially and ethnically diverse than prior generations. In 2017, fewer than six-in-ten Millennials (56%) were non-Hispanic whites, compared with more than eight-in-ten (84%) Silents. The share who are Hispanic is five times as large among Millennials as among Silents (21% vs. 4%), and the share who are Asian has also increased. However, the share who are black has remained roughly the same.

6. Young Silent men were more than 10 times more likely to be veterans than Millennial men are today. Although Millennials came of age at a time when the United States engaged in military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, they are far less likely to have served in the military than their Boomer or Silent predecessors. Among men, only 4% of Millennials are veterans, compared with 47% of Silent men, many of whom came of age during the Korean War and its aftermath. The number of young men serving in the active-duty military has decreased drastically since the establishment of an all-volunteer force in 1973, which is reflected in the decreased share who are veterans since then. Comparable historical data for veteran status by generation is not available for women, but contrary to men, the number of women serving in the active-duty military has risen in recent decades.

7. Greater shares of Millennials today live in metropolitan areas than Silents or Boomers did when they were young. In 1965, when members of the Silent Generation were young, two-thirds (67%) lived in a metropolitan area, while one-third (33%) lived in non-metropolitan areas. And a similar share of Baby Boomers (68%) lived in metro areas when they were young. By comparison, more recent generations are residing in metropolitan areas at higher rates. More than eight-in-ten Gen Xers (84%) lived in metropolitan areas when they were young and about nine-in-ten Millennials (88%) today live in metro areas.

This post was originally published on Pew Research Center’s Fact Tank blog.

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. Sign up for our newsletters, follow us on Twitter and Facebook and support our work.

By Andrew Perrin and Jingjing Jiang

As smartphones and other mobile devices have become more widespread, 26% of American adults now report that they go online “almost constantly,” up from 21% in 2015, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in January 2018.

Overall, 77% of Americans go online on a daily basis. That figure includes the 26% who go online almost constantly, as well as 43% who say they go online several times a day and 8% who go online about once a day. Some 11% go online several times a week or less often, while 11% of adults say they do not use the internet at all.

Adults with mobile connectivity are especially likely to be online a lot. Among mobile internet users — the 83% of Americans who use the internet at least occasionally using a smartphone, tablet or other mobile device — 89% go online daily and 31% go online almost constantly. Among Americans who go online but not via a mobile device, by comparison, 54% go online daily and just 5% say they go online almost constantly.

Younger adults are at the vanguard of the constantly connected: Roughly four-in-ten 18- to 29-year-olds (39%) now go online almost constantly and 49% go online multiple times per day. By comparison, just 8% of those 65 and older go online almost constantly and just 30% go online multiple times per day.

Americans ages 30 to 49 are now about as likely as younger adults to use the internet almost constantly (36% versus 39%). The share of 30- to 49-year olds who say this has risen 12 percentage points since 2015. Meanwhile, the share of constantly online Americans ages 50 to 64 has risen from 12% to 17%.

Other demographic groups that report going online frequently include college-educated adults, black adults, adults who live in higher-income households and non-rural residents.

Some 34% of adults with a college education or more go online almost constantly (and 92% go online daily), compared with 20% of adults with a high school education or less. At the same time, roughly four-in-ten blacks (37%) report using the internet almost constantly, compared with 30% of Hispanics and 23% of whites. The share of blacks who are almost constantly online has risen 14 points since 2015, while the share of Hispanics who say this has gone up by 11 points. Among whites, there has been little change.

While 35% of adults with an annual household income of $75,000 or more use the internet almost constantly (and 91% use it daily), this is true for just 24% of those making less than $30,000. Adults who live in urban and suburban areas are more likely to go online almost constantly than those who live in rural areas: 32% of adults living in urban areas and 27% living in suburban areas say this, compared with 15% of rural residents.

This post was originally published on Pew Research Center’s Fact Tank blog.

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. Sign up for our newsletters, follow us on Twitter and Facebook and support our work.

By Kristen Bialik

President Donald Trump will deliver his first State of the Union address on Tuesday — a speech that millions of Americans will watch closely. Earlier this month, about three-in-ten (31%) said in a Pew Research Center survey that this year’s speech is “more important” than those in past years, compared with 18% who said it is less important (43% said it’s about as important as past State of the Union addresses). Here is a look at public opinion on important issues facing the country, drawn from the Center’s recent surveys:

1. The economy and jobs: Americans’ views of economic conditions are more positive than they have been in recent years. An October survey found 41% of Americans rating economic conditions in the country as “excellent” or “good,” near the highest point in a decade. The public’s improving economic outlook is reflected in its policy agenda for Trump and Congress in the coming year. Economic issues — improving the job situation, strengthening the economy and reducing the budget deficit — are now viewed as less important policy priorities than they were just a few years ago, according to a survey conducted earlier this month.

The public’s view of local job availability has also improved substantially in recent years. In October, half of Americans said there are plenty of jobs available in their communities — the highest assessment in Pew Research Center surveys dating to 2001. Despite the public’s brighter outlook on jobs, however, there has been little change in the share of Americans (49%) who say their family’s income is falling behind the cost of living.

2. Taxes: The public has mixed expectations for the tax law recently passed by Congress and Trump. About as many say the law will have a mostly positive effect on them and their families (29%) as say its effect will be mostly negative (27%). A third of U.S. adults expect the law to not have much personal impact. Views also are split on how the law will affect the country as a whole, with 35% saying it will positively impact the nation and 40% anticipating a mostly negative effect. Just 15% say the law won’t have much effect on the country. These views vary by party and income. Those with higher incomes are more likely to say they will personally benefit from the new tax law.

3. Terrorism and global threats: Defending against terrorism continues to rank among the public’s leading priorities for the president and Congress, with nearly three-quarters (73%) saying it is a top priority.

Americans’ views of the campaign against ISIS specifically have sharply improved. Last fall, a majority of Americans (55%) said for the first time that the campaign against Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria is going well, up from just 31% a year earlier, with Republicans and Republican-leaning independents driving much of the overall increase. The public approves of the campaign overall (69%), but Americans have mixed views on whether it has made much difference on the chances of a terrorist attack in the United States. Similar shares of Democrats and Democratic leaners (46%) and Republicans and GOP leaners (47%) said the campaign has not made much difference. (Note: All further references to parties include leaners.)

Majorities in both parties agree that ISIS, North Korea’s nuclear program and cyberattacks from other countries pose “major threats” to the U.S., according to a survey conducted in October 2017. But there are partisan differences on other perceived threats. For example, Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to see Russia’s power and influence as a major threat (63% vs. 38%). The large partisan gap on views of Russia only emerged after the 2016 presidential election. For several years before that, Republican and Democratic views about the threat posed by Russia were generally similar.

4. Foreign policy: The public is evenly divided over whether the U.S. should “be active in world affairs” or “pay less attention to problems overseas and concentrate on problems here at home” (47% each), according to a July 2017 survey. The share favoring U.S. global involvement has increased from 35% in 2014, the last time this question was asked. A partisan gap has emerged on this question as Democrats increasingly say the U.S. should play an active role globally (56% say this, up from 38% in 2014).

When it comes to dealing with U.S. allies in global affairs, 59% of Americans say the U.S. should take into account the interests of its allies, even if it means making compromises with them; 36% say the U.S. should follow its own national interests even when its allies strongly disagree. While 74% of Democrats say allies’ interests should be taken into account, 54% of Republicans say the U.S. should follow its own interests when there is strong disagreement.

5. Immigration: Most Americans say immigrants strengthen the country with their hard work and talents (65%), rather than say that immigrants burden the country by taking jobs and other resources. Public views of immigrants have moved in a more positive direction over the past several years.

Two issues central to the current immigration debate — the status of immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children and expansion of the U.S.-Mexico border wall — have very different patterns of support among the public. Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults (74%) favor granting permanent legal status to immigrants brought here illegally as children, and just 37% favor substantially expanding the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

There are substantial partisan differences in views of both policies. However, while Republicans and Democrats are on opposite sides of the issue of expanding the border wall (72% of Republicans favor, 85% of Democrats oppose), among both Democrats and Republicans more favor than oppose permanent legal status for immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children (50% of Republicans and 92% of Democrats favor this).

6. Trade: Amid negotiations over the quarter-century-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Americans generally express positive views of the trade pact. Most Americans (56%) say that, all in all, the agreement is good for the U.S., according to an October survey. But Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say the pact is bad for the U.S. (54% vs. 18%), and to say that it benefits Mexico more than the United States. In recent years, partisans have moved apart in their assessments of free trade agreements in general, as Republicans have generally grown more negative in their views.

7. Health care: Despite repeated efforts by congressional Republicans to repeal the 2010 health care law known as the Affordable Care Act, more Americans see the law as having a positive effect on the U.S. than a negative effect (44% vs. 35%), according to a survey conducted in December. The share of Americans saying the law has had a positive effect on the country has increased 20 percentage points since 2013.

The same survey found that 69% of Americans say the federal government should play a major role in ensuring access to health care. Yet only 36% say the government is doing a very or somewhat good job at ensuring health care access, down from 56% in 2015.

8. Regulation: Half of the public says government regulation of business is necessary to protect the public interest, while 45% say it usually does more harm than good. Views on this question have been split for several years as partisan divides have grown wider. Democratic support for business regulation is now higher than it was during much of the 1990s and 2000s. As of July 2017, two-thirds of Democrats (66%) say government regulation is necessary to protect the public interest, while just 31% of Republicans say the same. When it comes to government’s role on specific issues, such as ensuring safe food and medicine, large majorities say the government should play a “major role.”

9. Environment: While partisans agree on some assessments of what Trump and Congress’ top priorities are, climate change and the environment are among the most divisive. Nearly seven-in-ten Democrats (68%) say dealing with climate change should be a top policy priority, 50 percentage points higher than the share of Republicans who say so (18%). And while 81% of Democrats say protecting the environment should be a top priority, just 37% of Republicans say the same.

There is also an increasingly wide partisan gap when it comes to environmental laws and regulations. In July 2017, 77% of Democrats said stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost, while 58% of Republicans say such regulations cost too many jobs and hurt the economy.

10. Race relations: Nearly a year into Trump’s presidency, a majority of Americans (60%) say his election has worsened race relations in the United States. Three-in-ten say Trump’s election has not made a difference when it comes to race relations, and just 8% say his election has made them better. Just after Trump’s election in 2016, nearly half of Republican voters (48%) said they expected his election to lead to improved race relations. Roughly a year later, just 17% of Republicans say it has. Meanwhile, about eight-in-ten Democratic voters (83%) say Trump’s election has made race relations worse, little different than the share who expected his election to lead to worse race relations in November 2016 (81%).

Opinions about the overall state of race relations in the country remain more negative than positive. Today, just 38% say race relations are generally good, while 56% say they are generally bad.

Note: See full topline results on importance of State of the Union and policy priorities here (PDF).

This post was originally published on Pew Research Center’s Fact Tank blog.

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. Sign up for our newsletters, follow us on Twitter and Facebook and support our work.

By Gretchen Livingston

U.S. fertility rates have reached another record low, at 62.0 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age, according to the most recent government figures. To some, this is cause for hand-wringing, as concerns arise that low fertility will spell problems for the nation’s economy; while others, concerned about limited natural resources, may look positively on the decline.

But aside from this debate, the question remains: Is this really a record low? The short answer is: It’s complicated.

That’s because there are different ways to measure fertility. Three of the most commonly used indicators of fertility are the general fertility rate (GFR); completed fertility; and the total fertility rate (TFR). All three reflect fertility behavior in slightly different ways — respectively, in terms of the annual rate at which women are presently having kids; the number of kids they ultimately have; or the hypothetical number they would likely have based on present fertility patterns.

None of these indicators is “right” or “wrong,” but each tells a different story about when fertility bottomed out.

The latest report from the National Center for Health Statistics used the general fertility rate to show that U.S. fertility in 2016 was at an all-time low. For every 1,000 women of childbearing age — typically defined as ages 15 to 44 — there were 62.0 births.

Like all the fertility measures discussed here, the GFR is unaffected by the overall population size, as well as the share of the population that consists of women of childbearing age. However, it is affected by changes in the age distribution among women of childbearing age; the higher the share of women in their peak childbearing years, the higher the general fertility rate will be, all else being equal (and vice versa).

The record-low GFR cited by the government is primarily a result of a decline in birth rates among women younger than 30, which is in part due to the Great Recession of the late 2000s; when there is an economic downturn, people tend to postpone having children. However, there has also been a slight decline in the share of women who are in their peak childbearing years (ages 20–34), which may play a small role in the decline.

The second fertility measure is completed fertility, which counts the number of children a woman has in her lifetime. Typically, researchers collect fertility data for women ages 15 to 44 because those are considered childbearing years. They then measure “completed fertility” as the number of children ever born to women ages 40 to 44, on the assumption that most women at this age are done having children. According to this measure, since 1976, the low point in U.S. fertility occurred around 2006, when women near the end of their childbearing years had had an average of 1.86 kids.

Because it is a retrospective measure, completed fertility summarizes childbearing patterns from recent decades but cannot provide direct insights into the fertility behaviors of younger women today. Also, because it doesn’t take into account the larger shares of women who are postponing childbearing, it may underestimate fertility for some, such as highly educated women, many of whom have children later in life. (To address this, the U.S. Census Bureau recently began collecting fertility data for women up to age 50.)

A third indicator, the total fertility rate, is an estimate of lifetime fertility, based on present fertility patterns. It bottomed out even earlier — in the inflationary period around 1976 — when it was estimated that U.S. women would have, on average, 1.74 kids in their lifetimes.

The TFR is not an actual accounting of lifetime fertility, but instead is a hypothetical measure based on fertility information from one point in time, which is then projected into the future to estimate the number of babies a typical women would ever have if her lifetime childbearing experience reflected current age-specific fertility rates.

For example, in 1980 the total fertility rate was 1.84. This means that girls age 15 in 1980 (and thus at the beginning of their childbearing years) were predicted to have, on average, 1.84 children in their lifetime, based on the assumption that their likelihood of having a baby at each subsequent age would reflect the age-specific fertility rates of 1980. So the assumption was that when they were 25 years old in 1990, this group of young women would have the same fertility rate as 25-year-old women did in 1980; when they were 35 in 2000, they would have fertility rates similar to the rate that 35-year-olds had in 1980; and so on.

This type of technique is called “age standardization,” and it’s wholly unaffected by the age makeup of women in their childbearing years. It will produce the same predicted lifetime fertility, regardless of whether there is an especially large share of women in the prime childbearing ages, or if the share in prime childbearing ages is very small.

The TFR is a powerful measure most commonly used to characterize “replacement fertility,” meaning the level of estimated fertility that is necessary for a population to reproduce itself, assuming no in-migration or out-migration. A total fertility rate of 2.08 is considered “replacement level” in the U.S. (While it might seem that “replacement fertility” for a couple should be 2, it is actually a bit higher, to account for childhood mortality.)

All else being equal, the TFR can fluctuate dramatically if there is a shift in the timing of births among women in their childbearing years. On one hand, sometimes the TFR estimate proves accurate. As our chart shows, the 1980 TFR did a good job of predicting fertility — it almost exactly matches the completed fertility of women who had been 15 in 1980, and were approaching the end of their childbearing years in 2005.

But the total fertility rates during the Baby Boom dramatically overestimated U.S. fertility, because they reflected the fact that some women were having babies at ages younger than had been the norm, while others were perhaps “catching up” on births that were postponed due to World War II. For example, the TFR in 1960 was 3.65, but women who entered their childbearing years around that time actually gave birth to about 2.45 children in their lifetimes, according to 1985 completed fertility.

More recently, many women have been putting off having children. As a result, today’s TFRs may be underestimating what completed fertility in the U.S. and Europe will look like. Furthermore, research has revealed that because of its sensitivity to timing, the TFR typically overestimates fertility among Hispanic immigrants to the U.S., who experience their highest fertility rates within five years after migrating, regardless of their age at that time.

So, how do these three measures compare? Both the total fertility rate and the general fertility rate show similar trends, though obviously the numbers play out very differently in each case. Both clearly reflect the heightened fertility of the Baby Boom, as well as the subsequent “Baby Bust.” And both show a rise in fertility just before the economic recession of 2007, followed by almost continuous fertility declines.

Meanwhile, available data on completed fertility reveal that from 1976 to 2016, the total number of children ever born peaked in the late 1970s as those women who came of age during the Baby Boom reached the end of their childbearing years. Since 2006, completed fertility has risen slightly, even as the other measures have continued to drop.

Fertility — however it is defined — is influenced by a variety of demographic, social and economic factors. Among the more important contributors to fertility levels are the age composition of childbearing women (most births occur between ages 20 and 34); the share of childbearing-age women who are married (married women are more likely to give birth than unmarried women); the economic climate; and the share of childbearing age among women who are born in another country (foreign-born women have higher birth rates than U.S.-born women).

This post was originally published on Pew Research Center’s Fact Tank blog.

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. Sign up for our newsletters, follow us on Twitter and Facebook and support our work.

By Nikki Graf, Richard Fry and Cary Funk

Employment in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) occupations has grown 79% since 1990, from 9.7 million to 17.3 million, outpacing overall U.S. job growth. There’s no single standard for which jobs count as STEM, and this may contribute to a number of misperceptions about who works in STEM and the difference that having a STEM-related degree can make in workers’ pocketbooks.

A new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data takes a broad-based look at the STEM workforce from 1990 to 2016 based on an analysis of adults ages 25 and older working in any of 74 occupations. These include computer, math, engineering and architecture occupations, physical scientists, life scientists and health-related occupations such as health care practitioners and technicians, but not health care support workers such as nursing aides and medical assistants.

Here are seven facts about the STEM workforce and STEM training.

1. STEM workers enjoy a pay advantage compared with non-STEM workers with similar levels of education. Among those with some college education, the typical full-time, year-round STEM worker earns $54,745 while a similarly educated non-STEM worker earns $40,505, or 26% less.

And among those with the highest levels of education, STEM workers out-earn their non-STEM counterparts by a similar margin. Non-STEM workers with a master’s degree typically earn 26% less than STEM workers with similar education. The median earnings of non-STEM workers with a professional or doctoral degree trail their STEM counterparts by 24%.

2. While STEM workers tend to be highly educated, roughly a third have not completed a bachelor’s or higher-level degree. A substantial share (35%) of the STEM workforce does not have a bachelor’s degree. Overall, about three-in-ten STEM workers report having completed an associate degree (15%) or have some college education but no degree (14%). These workers are more prevalent among health care practitioners and technicians, computer workers and engineers.

Some 36% of STEM workers have a bachelor’s degree but no graduate degree. Roughly three-in-ten STEM workers (29%) have earned a master’s, doctorate or professional degree. Life scientists are the most highly educated among STEM workers, with 54%, on average, having an advanced degree.

3. About half of workers with college training in a STEM field are working in a non-STEM job. Among workers ages 25 and older with at least a bachelor’s degree, one-in-three (33%) have an undergraduate degree in a STEM field of study. But only about half (52%) of these STEM-trained workers are employed in a STEM occupation.

Among non-STEM occupations, management, business and finance jobs attract a substantial share of college graduates with STEM training (17%), particularly those who majored in engineering. Roughly a quarter (24%) of engineering majors are in a managerial, business or finance job.

Overall, among adults with a STEM college major, women are more likely than men to work in a STEM occupation (56% vs. 49%). This difference is driven mainly by college graduates with a health professions major (such as nursing or pharmacy), most of whom are women.

But, 38% of women and 53% of men with a college major in computers or computer science are employed in a computer occupation. And women with a college degree in engineering are less likely than men who majored in these fields to be working in an engineering job (24% vs. 30%). These differences in retention within a field of study for women in computer and engineering occupations are in keeping with other studies showing a “leaky pipeline” for women in STEM.

4. STEM training in college is associated with higher earnings, whether working in a STEM occupation or not. Among college-educated workers employed full-time year-round, the median earnings for those who have a STEM college major are $81,011, compared with $60,828 for other college majors.

The earnings advantage for those with a college major in a STEM field extends to workers outside of STEM occupations. Among all non-STEM workers, those who have a STEM college degree earn, on average, about $71,000; workers with a non-STEM degree working outside of STEM earn roughly $11,000 less annually.

5. The share of women varies widely across STEM job types. Women are underrepresented in some STEM job clusters, but in others they match or exceed their share in the U.S. workforce overall.

In fact, women comprise three-quarters of health care practitioners and technicians, the largest occupational cluster classified as STEM in this analysis, with 9.0 million workers — 6.7 million of whom are women.

And women’s gains since 1990 in the life sciences (up from 34% to 47%) have brought them roughly on par with their share in the total workforce (47%), a milestone reached in math occupations (46%) as well.

Women remain underrepresented in engineering (14%), computer (25%) and physical science (39%) occupations.

6. Women have made significant gains in life and physical sciences, but in other areas their shares have been stable and in computer jobs it has declined. While there has been significant progress for women’s representation in the life and physical sciences since 1990, the share of women has been roughly stable in several other STEM job clusters.

In engineering, the job cluster in which women have the lowest levels of representation on average, women’s shares have inched up only slightly, from 12% in 1990 to 14% today.

And, the share of women has actually decreased in one of the highest-paying and fastest-growing STEM clusters — computer occupations. In 1990, 32% of workers in computer occupations were women; today women’s share has dropped to 25%.

7. Blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented in the STEM workforce. Overall, blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented in the STEM workforce relative to their shares in the U.S. workforce as a whole. This underrepresentation is evident across all STEM job clusters, with one exception: 11% of health care practitioners and technicians are black, similar to the share of blacks in the total workforce.

Within job clusters, however, the share of blacks and Hispanics varies widely. For example, 37% of licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses are either black or Hispanic. By comparison, other health-related jobs have smaller shares of workers who are black or Hispanic, including physicians and surgeons (11%), pharmacists (10%), dentists (9%) and physical therapists (9%). Just 5% of optometrists, veterinarians and chiropractors are black or Hispanic.

Asians are overrepresented across all STEM occupational groups, particularly among computer workers and life scientists. They account for 19% of workers in both of these fields, which is much higher than their share in the workforce overall (6%).

The share of Asians varies substantially within occupational groups, however. For example, in engineering jobs the share of Asians ranges from 30% among computer hardware engineers to 2% among surveying and mapping technicians. Among health care practitioners and technicians, about one-in-five (21%) physicians and surgeons are Asian. But Asians comprise a far smaller share in other occupations, such as veterinarians (3%) and emergency medical technicians and paramedics (2%).

This post was originally published on Pew Research Center’s Fact Tank blog.

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. Sign up for our newsletters, follow us on Twitter and Facebook and support our work.

By Abigail Geiger

About six-in-ten Americans (61%) say the use of marijuana should be legalized, reflecting a steady increase over the past decade, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The survey, conducted in October, finds that the share of U.S. adults who support marijuana legalization is little changed from about a year ago — when 57% favored it — but it is nearly double what it was in 2000 (31%).

As in the past, there are wide generational and partisan differences in views of marijuana legalization. Majorities of Millennials (70%), Gen Xers (66%) and Baby Boomers (56%) say the use of marijuana should be legal. Only among the Silent Generation does a greater share oppose (58%) than favor (35%) marijuana legalization.

Nearly seven-in-ten Democrats say marijuana use should be legal, as do 65% of independents. By contrast, just 43% of Republicans favor marijuana legalization, while 55% are opposed.

While both parties are divided along age lines in views of marijuana legalization, the differences are especially stark among Republicans.

Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, those younger than 40 favor legalizing marijuana use, 62% to 38%. Republicans ages 40 to 64 are divided (48% say it should be legal, 49% illegal), while those 65 and older oppose marijuana legalization by more than two-to-one (67% to 30%).

Sizable majorities of Democrats and Democratic leaners younger than 40 (79%) and 40 to 64 (70%) favor marijuana legalization. Older Democrats — those 65 and older — are more divided (50% favor legalization, 42% oppose it).

The growing public support for legal marijuana comes as more states have legalized the drug for recreational purposes. This week, stores in California began selling recreational marijuana after voters legalized the practice in a November 2016 ballot measure. Seven other states and the District of Columbia have also legalized the drug for recreational purposes. Meanwhile, 29 states — plus the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico — have legalized the drug for medical purposes.

Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions this week announced that the Justice Department may step up enforcement in jurisdictions that have legalized the drug.

Note: See full topline results and methodology here (PDF).

This post was originally published on Pew Research Center’s Fact Tank blog.

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. Sign up for our newsletters, follow us on Twitter and Facebook and support our work.

By Michael Dimock

In his first year as U.S. president, Donald Trump represented a clear break in style and substance from his predecessor, Barack Obama — and from many of the chief executives who came before them. The businessman-turned-politician upended Washington with unrestrained rhetoric and an “America First” agenda that included renegotiating international trade pacts, withdrawing from a worldwide climate change agreement and curtailing immigration into the United States.

At home and abroad, the public reacted strongly to the White House’s new occupant and his policies. Confidence in the U.S. president plummeted in many countries, particularly in Western Europe, while opinions of America itself also declined sharply. In the U.S., already-wide partisan gaps on fundamental political values grew even wider. A fraught relationship between Trump and the press drew frequent attention, with large majorities seeing it as unhealthy and an impediment to Americans’ ability to access important political news. And, as the country began to adjust to this new era, substantial shares in both parties — particularly women — said they were paying more attention to politics since Trump’s election.

Democrats were overwhelmingly negative in their assessments of Trump, who came to office vowing to undo Obama-era policies from the 2010 health care overhaul to environmental regulations to a program that shielded nearly 800,000 young unauthorized immigrants from deportation. Republicans were buoyed by the arrival of the first GOP president in eight years and cheered his successful nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. While some GOP members of Congress found themselves at odds with an unconventional and outspoken chief executive of their own party, Republicans appeared poised to achieve a major legislative victory at year’s end by overhauling the federal tax code.

Trump’s contentious first year was among the defining stories of 2017. But beyond the shifts in policy and approach that accompanied the transition between presidential administrations, the year revealed other important trends shaping American society.

Allegations of sexual misconduct against powerful men in entertainment, media and politics — from Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein to morning news anchor Matt Lauer to the longest-serving member of Congress, John Conyers — brought widespread attention to the issues of sexual harassment, gender discrimination and gender equality. The #MeToo campaign, which spread rapidly on Twitter and Facebook in the wake of these news stories, prompted women around the country to share stories about their personal experiences with sexual misconduct. And, when Time magazine selected its “Person of the Year” in December, the winner was not one person but the broad range of people who came forward.

Pew Research Center surveys underscored the breadth of these experiences, as well as the public’s attitudes toward them. In a poll conducted in early fall, about four-in-ten U.S. women said they had personally experienced gender discrimination or been treated unfairly because of their gender, while nearly six-in-ten women said the country hasn’t gone far enough when it comes to giving women equal rights with men. In a separate survey, many employed women reported an array of experiences with gender discrimination at work, ranging from earning less than a man for doing the same job to being treated as if they were not competent.

Racial issues continued to draw national attention. The removal of Confederate statues by local governments in the South and elsewhere became a flashpoint as Americans debated whether the statues perpetuated racism or merely reflected a common history. In August, a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, led to violent clashes in the city’s streets, including the death of one person and the injury of 19 others when a car driven by an alleged white nationalist sped into a crowd of counterprotesters.

Discussions of race extended to other venues as well. When the NFL season began in the fall, some players protested perceived racial injustice and police mistreatment of blacks by kneeling during the national anthem, a move that provoked anger among those who saw the protests as disrespectful. Trump was among those who criticized the players; indeed, he was a frequent commenter on the nation’s racial controversies.

Against this backdrop, the public expressed rising concern about race relations. In an August survey conducted shortly after the violence in Charlottesville, nearly six-in-ten Americans said they viewed racism as a big problem in U.S. society — up 8 percentage points from 2015 and roughly double the share who held this view in November 2011. But there were stark divisions along racial and partisan lines. For example, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents were far more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to see racism as a big problem. A similar trend was evident on a separate question about whether white people in the U.S. benefit from societal advantages that blacks do not have: Democrats and Democratic leaners were much more likely than Republicans and GOP leaners to say whites do benefit from such advantages.

The economy brought positive news. The national unemployment rate fell to 4.1% in October and November, the lowest level since 2000. The Dow Jones industrial average, which broke 20,000 points in January for the first time ever, soared to more than 24,000 points by the end of the year. Americans’ evaluations of the economy also improved: About four-in-ten rated national economic conditions as “excellent” or “good,” the highest share in a decade. As has historically been the case, however, views tended to be colored by the public’s partisan affiliations, with a surge in Republican optimism driving much of the overall increase in economic positivity.

Gun violence took an especially deadly toll in 2017. In October, a gunman in a Las Vegas hotel room opened fire on an open-air concert below, killing 58 people and injuring nearly 500 in the deadliest mass shooting in the country’s modern history. A month later, a man in rural Texas shot 26 people to death and injured 20 others as they attended a Sunday church service — the worst mass shooting in that state’s history. Earlier in the year, a gunman fired dozens of rounds at members of Congress, their staff members and others participating in a morning baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia, severely injuring Rep. Steve Scalise, one of the highest-ranking members of the House of Representatives.

The spate of attacks brought familiar calls for legislation to restrict access to guns. A survey the Center conducted in spring, before the shootings, found areas of agreement on some proposals, such as preventing the mentally ill from purchasing guns and requiring background checks for private gun sales and those at gun shows. More broadly, however, it shed light on the country’s complex relationship with guns, including some fundamental divides between gun owners and non-gun owners and Democrats and Republicans. While three-quarters of Democrats and Democratic leaners said gun laws should be more strict than they are today, for instance, only about a quarter of Republicans and Republican leaners (24%) agreed. And while most Republicans (56%) said there would be less crime if more Americans owned guns, just 15% of Democrats shared that view.

Large partisan gaps were evident across many of the issues the Center asked about in 2017, from Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico to the threat posed by global climate change.

One area that starkly divided the parties was the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into alleged ties between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia. The inquiry, launched in May, led to criminal charges against four former members of the campaign, including its one-time chairman, Paul Manafort.

In a survey fielded in November and December, only about a quarter of Republicans and Republican leaners (26%) said Trump officials definitely or probably had improper contacts with Russia during the campaign. By contrast, about eight-in-ten Democrats and Democratic leaners (82%) said such contacts definitely or probably occurred. Partisans were also sharply divided over whether Mueller’s investigation would be conducted fairly: While nearly seven-in-ten Democrats (68%) were confident it would be fair, just 44% of Republicans agreed. Trump himself referred to the investigation as a “witch hunt.”

In some cases, partisan shifts in opinion were dramatic. Amid Trump’s persistent criticisms of CNN and other media outlets as “fake news,” for example, partisan differences over the role of the press as a “watchdog” were wider than in more than three decades of Pew Research Center surveys. In a March survey, Democrats were roughly twice as likely as Republicans to say criticism from news organizations keeps political leaders from doing things that shouldn’t be done (89% versus 42%). When the Center last asked this question in January and February 2016, about three-quarters of both Democrats (74%) and Republicans (77%) said this.

The federal government’s handling of natural disasters also became a charged partisan issue, particularly following Hurricane Maria, which caused widespread damage and loss of life in Puerto Rico. In a survey late in the year, nearly nine-in-ten Republicans and Republican leaners (88%) said the federal government is doing a good job responding to natural disasters, a view shared by only about half (51%) of Democrats and Democratic leaners. In October 2015, there was only a 4-point gap between the parties on this question, with 82% of Democrats and 78% of Republicans saying the government does a good job handling natural disasters.

Not all issues divided the country along partisan lines. Americans across the political spectrum expressed rising worry about North Korea’s nuclear program following a series of increasingly advanced missile tests by the secretive Asian nation and an escalating war of words between Trump and the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un.

Three-quarters of Americans said in October that they view North Korea’s nuclear program as a “major threat” to the U.S., up from 64% in January and as high a share as at any point since 2005. Majorities in both parties said the U.S. should take the North’s threats very seriously; that the North is really willing to follow through on its threats to use nuclear weapons against the U.S.; and that the North is capable of launching a missile that could reach the U.S. An overwhelming majority of Americans also said they believed Trump is “really willing” to use military force against North Korea.

In both parties, majorities of Americans also agreed on some other perceived security threats facing the U.S., from cyberattacks launched by other countries to the terrorist group known as the Islamic State, which again claimed high-profile attacks in places including Manchester, England; Barcelona, Spain; and New York City, which suffered its deadliest terrorist attack since Sept. 11, 2001.

As 2017 draws to a close, some of the stories that defined the year will continue to unfold. There is little sign, for example, that the crisis in North Korea will disappear; nor do stories about sexual misconduct appear likely to subside, and the investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 election continues. The Trump administration will push forward on its policy agenda, including decisions about immigration and the border wall.

As 2018 arrives, Pew Research Center will be observing these and other important developments — and, as always, seeking to understand Americans’ views about the society they live in.

Michael Dimock is the president of Pew Research Center, where he leads a domestic and international research agenda to explain public attitudes, demographic changes and other important trends that are shaping our world. A political scientist by training, Dimock has been at the Center since 2000 and has co-authored several of its landmark research reports, including studies of trends in American political and social values and a groundbreaking examination of political polarization within the American public.

Originally published at www.pewresearch.org on December 20, 2017.

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. Sign up for our newsletters and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

By Kim Parker and Cary Funk

About four-in-ten working women (42%) in the United States say they have faced discrimination on the job because of their gender. They report a broad array of personal experiences, ranging from earning less than male counterparts for doing the same job to being passed over for important assignments, according to a new analysis of Pew Research Center survey data.

The survey — conducted in the summer before a recent wave of sexual misconduct allegations against prominent men in politics, the media and other industries — found that, among employed adults, women are about twice as likely as men (42% versus 22%) to say they have experienced at least one of eight specific forms of gender discrimination at work.

One of the biggest gender gaps is in the area of income: One-in-four working women (25%) say they have earned less than a man who was doing the same job; one-in-twenty working men (5%) say they have earned less than a female peer.

Women are roughly four times as likely as men to say they have been treated as if they were not competent because of their gender (23% of employed women versus 6% of men), and they are about three times as likely as men to say they have experienced repeated small slights at work because of their gender (16% versus 5%).

There are significant gaps on other items as well. While 15% of working women say they have received less support from senior leaders than a man who was doing the same job, only 7% of working men report having a similar experience. One-in-ten working women say they have been passed over for the most important assignments because of their gender, compared with 5% of men.

The survey, which was conducted July 11-Aug. 10, 2017, with a nationally representative sample of 4,914 adults (including 4,702 who are employed at least part time), also asked about sexual harassment in a separate question. It found that while similar shares of women and men say sexual harassment is at least a small problem in their workplace (36% versus 35%), women are about three times as likely as men to have experienced it personally while at work (22% versus 7%).

In more recent surveys conducted by other organizations, the share of women reporting personal experiences with sexual harassment has fluctuated, depending in part on how the question was asked. In an ABC News/Washington Post survey conducted Oct. 12–15, for example, 54% of women said they have received unwanted sexual advances from a man that they felt were inappropriate whether or not those advances were work-related; 30% said this had happened to them at work. In an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted Nov. 13–15, 35% of women said they have personally experienced sexual harassment or abuse from someone in the workplace.

The Center’s survey asked about sexual harassment specific to the workplace. The survey was conducted as part of a broader forthcoming study on women and minorities in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.

Differences by education

Among employed women, the share saying they have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace is roughly similar across racial and ethnic, educational, generational and partisan lines. But when it comes to specific forms of workplace discrimination tested in the survey, there are significant differences among women that are rooted mainly in their level of education.

Women with a bachelor’s degree or more education report experiencing discrimination across a range of items at significantly higher rates than women with less education. And in some regards, the most highly educated women stand out. While 57% of working women with a postgraduate degree say they have experienced some form of gender discrimination at work, for example, the same is true for 40% of women with a bachelor’s degree and 39% of those who did not complete college.

Roughly three-in-ten working women with a postgraduate degree (29%) say they have experienced repeated small slights at work because of their gender, compared with 18% of those with a bachelor’s degree and 12% with less education. Similarly, working women with a postgraduate degree are much more likely than their less-educated counterparts to say they have received less support from senior leaders than a man doing the same job (27% of postgraduate women, compared with 11% of women with bachelor’s degrees and 13% of women with less education). The pattern is similar when it comes to being passed over for promotions and feeling isolated at work.

When it comes to wages, working women with a bachelor’s degree or more are much more likely than those with less education to say they have earned less than a man who performed the same job. Women with family incomes of $100,000 or higher stand out here as well — 30% of them say they’ve earned less than a man who was doing comparable work compared with roughly one-in-five women with lower incomes (21%). But overall, women with higher family incomes are about equally likely to have experienced at least one of these eight forms of gender-based discrimination at work.

There are differences by race and ethnicity as well. While roughly half of employed black women (53%) say they have experienced at least one type of gender discrimination at work, fewer white and Hispanic women say the same (40% for each group). One area in particular where black women stand apart is in their reporting of having been passed over for the most important assignments because of their gender — 22% of employed black women say this has happened to them, compared with 8% of whites and 9% of Hispanics.

Women’s experiences with discrimination in the workplace also differ along party lines. Roughly half (48%) of working Democratic women and Democratic-leaning independents say they have experienced at least one form of gender discrimination at work, compared with a third of Republican and Republican-leaning women. These party differences hold up even after controlling for race. The partisan gap is in keeping with wide party differences among both men and women in their views of gender equality in the U.S.; a separate 2017 Pew Research Center survey found Democrats largely dissatisfied with the country’s progress toward gender equality.

About the survey: These are some of the findings from a survey conducted among a nationally representative sample of 4,914 adults, ages 18 and older, from July 11-Aug. 10, 2017. The survey, which was conducted online in English and in Spanish through GfK’s Knowledge Panel, included an oversample of employed adults working in science, technology, engineering and math-related fields. The margin of sampling error based on the 4,702 employed adults in the sample is plus or minus 2.0 percentage points. The margin of sampling error based on the 2,344 employed women in the sample is plus or minus 3.0 percentage points. See the topline for exact question wording.

This post was originally published on Pew Research Center’s Fact Tank blog.

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. Sign up for our newsletters and follow us on Twitter andFacebook.

Despite persistently low levels of public satisfaction with the state of the nation, most Americans say they have achieved the “American dream” or are on their way to achieving it. Only about one-in-five (17%) say the American dream is “out of reach” for their family.

The American dream means different things to different people, however. Far fewer Americans say “becoming wealthy” is essential to the American dream than say the same about personal freedom and a good family life.

Overall, 36% of U.S. adults say their family has achieved the American dream, while another 46% say they are “on their way” to achieving it, according to an August survey by Pew Research Center. (The survey asked people about the “American dream,” as they define it.) People who say they have already achieved the American dream are generally older, more affluent and better-educated than those who say they are on their way to achieving the American dream and those who say it’s out of reach.

Whites (41%) are more likely than blacks (17%) or Hispanics (32%) to say they have achieved the American dream. But more blacks (62%) and Hispanics (51%) than whites (42%) say they are on their way to achieving it. Notably, there are no significant racial or ethnic differences in the shares who say the American dream is out of reach for their families.

The partisan differences in impressions of whether people have reached the American dream are relatively modest: 41% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they have achieved it, compared with 32% of Democrats and Democratic leaners.

Freedom of choice, family widely viewed as essential elements of American dream

While people differ on the meaning of the American dream, very few — just 11% of the public — say “being wealthy” is essential to their own view of it.

By contrast, majorities say “freedom of choice in how to live” (77%), having a good family life (70%) and retiring comfortably (60%) are essential to their view of the American dream.

Smaller shares say making valuable community contributions (48%), owning a home (43%) and having a successful career (also 43%) are essential to their view of the American dream, but relatively few (no more than 9%) say these are not important to the American dream.

However, 40% say being wealthy is not important in their vision of the American dream, by far the highest share among the seven items asked about.

There are modest educational differences in attitudes about what is essential to the American dream. For example, 87% of those with at least a four-year college degree say freedom of choice in how to live is essential, as do 82% of those with some college experience. By comparison, a smaller majority (65%) of those with no more than a high school diploma say this.

And while 15% of those with a high school education or less say becoming wealthy is essential to the American dream, fewer of those with college experience say the same (8% of college graduates and 9% of those with some college experience).

Partisanship is not a major factor in these views. Across all items, there are modest or no partisan differences in views of what is essential to the American dream.

This post was originally published on Pew Research Center’s Fact Tank blog.

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. Sign up for our newsletters and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.