Decatur’s Kid Conundrum in One Chart
Decatur Metro | March 4, 2015 | 9:02 amEvery two years, the City of Decatur works with the National Research Center to send out a Citizen Survey to over 1,000 randomly selected list of residents and asks them a number of questions. The survey asks residents for their opinions on everything from city services, to how safe residents feel, how often they use the DeKalb Library or how often ride a bus.
You get the the picture. It runs the gamut. That includes questions about your household.
And here’s one very apt question – considering the city’s school enrollment drama – that the city has asked since the survey’s inception in 2006 – “Do any children 17 or under live in your household?”
We’ve charted the percentage of households that answered “Yes” to that question each time the survey has been conducted above.
As you can see quite clearly, the slight over-index of the 17-and-under crowd in 2006 to the current national average has become a giant advantage in 2014, with a cool 41% of households in the City of Decatur answering “Yes” to that question.
It should be noted that the resident majority still favors the childless household – an important consideration for the School Board and City Commission if they decide to put an $82 million bond referendum for all city residents to vote on in November.
And before anyone brings up the accuracy of a the survey, the confidence level is “plus or minus five percentage points around any given percent reported for the entire sample.” So yes, technically, the child population could be flat from 2012 to 2014, but that’s pretty unlikely. The upward trend is certainly real, as well as the fact that Decatur far outperforms the national average when it comes to households with kids.
You can view all the detailed data from Decatur’s 2014 Citizen Survey HERE.
*2013 National average estimate taken from US Census