These data are from the 20-, 15-, and 5-percent samples of the 1970 United States Census of Population and Housing, and contain population characteristics such as education, occupation, income, citizenship, and vocational training. Separate tallies are shown for whites, Blacks, Hispanic Americans (referred to as Spanish Americans in the 1970 Census), and the total population. The unit of observation for these data files is the census tract. There is one file for each of 48 states and the District of Columbia. The Census Bureau did not issue data for Vermont and Wyoming because these two states were untracted in 1970.

These data are from the 20-, 15-, and 5-percent samples of the 1970 United States Census of Population and Housing, and contain tabulations of housing characteristics such as housing value, number of housing units in structure, number of rooms in housing unit, year structure was built, occupancy/vacancy status, tenure, rent, type of heating fuel, source of water, and presence of an air conditioner and other home appliances. The unit of observation for these data files is the census tract

In 2024, 34.59 percent of all households in the United States were two person households. In 1970, this figure was at 28.92 percent. Single households Single mother households are usually the most common households with children under 18 years old found in the United States. As of 2021, the District of Columbia and North Dakota had the highest share of single-person households in the United States. Household size in the United States has decreased over the past century, due to customs and traditions changing. Families are typically more nuclear, whereas in the past, multigenerational households were more common. Furthermore, fertility rates have also decreased, meaning that women do not have as many children as they used to. Average households in Utah Out of all states in the U.S., Utah was reported to have the largest average household size. This predominately Mormon state has about three million inhabitants. The Church of the Latter-Day Saints, or Mormonism, plays a large role in Utah, and can contribute to the high birth rate and household size in Utah. The Church of Latter-Day Saints promotes having many children and tight-knit families. Furthermore, Utah has a relatively young population, due to Mormons typically marrying and starting large families younger than those in other states.

Abstract

IPUMS-International is an effort to inventory, preserve, harmonize, and disseminate census microdata from around the world. The project has collected the world's largest archive of publicly available census samples. The data are coded and documented consistently across countries and over time to facillitate comparative research. IPUMS-International makes these data available to qualified researchers free of charge through a web dissemination system.

The IPUMS project is a collaboration of the Minnesota Population Center, National Statistical Offices, and international data archives. Major funding is provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Demographic and Behavioral Sciences Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Additional support is provided by the University of Minnesota Office of the Vice President for Research, the Minnesota Population Center, and Sun Microsystems.

Geographic coverage

National coverage

Analysis unit

Households and Group Quarters

UNITS IDENTIFIED: - Dwellings: No - Vacant units: Yes - Households: Yes - Individuals: Yes - Group quarters: Yes

UNIT DESCRIPTIONS: - Households: Dwelling places with fewer than five persons unrelated to a household head, excluding institutions and transient quarters. - Group quarters: Institutions, transient quarters, and dwelling places with five or more persons unrelated to a household head.

Universe

Residents of the 50 states (not the outlying areas).

Kind of data

Census/enumeration data [cen]

Sampling procedure

MICRODATA SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau

SAMPLE UNIT: Household

SAMPLE FRACTION: 1%

SAMPLE SIZE (person records): 2,029,666

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

One in five housing units in 1970 received a long form containing supplemental sample questions. There were two versions of the long form, with different inquiries on both housing and population items; 15 percent of households received one version, and 5 percent received the other. Six independent 1 percent public use samples were produced for 1970, three from the 15 percent questionnaire and three from the 5 percent questionnaire. IPUMS-International uses the "Form 2 Metro" sample.

Response rate

UNDERCOUNT: No official estimates

IPUMS-International is an effort to inventory, preserve, harmonize, and disseminate census microdata from around the world. The project has collected the world's largest archive of publicly available census samples. The data are coded and documented consistently across countries and over time to facillitate comparative research. IPUMS-International makes these data available to qualified researchers free of charge through a web dissemination system. The IPUMS project is a collaboration of the Minnesota Population Center, National Statistical Offices, and international data archives. Major funding is provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Demographic and Behavioral Sciences Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Additional support is provided by the University of Minnesota Office of the Vice President for Research, the Minnesota Population Center, and Sun Microsystems.

Throughout the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union had relatively similar total populations. The U.S.' population grew from around 205 million to almost 250 million people between 1970 and 1990, while the USSR's population grew from around 240 to 290 million in this time. In these years, the Soviet Union had the third largest population in the world, and the U.S. had the fourth largest (behind China and India respectively). Despite their similar sizes, these populations differed in terms of distribution as the U.S.' population was approximately three quarters urban in this period, whereas the Soviet Union's urban population was just 56 percent in 1970 and 66 percent in 1989. Additionally, the Soviet Union's population was much younger than that of the U.S. due to a higher birth rate and lower life expectancy.

This file contains annual population estimates for the entire nation and for each state for the years 1970-1979. The data for 1970 are from the 1970 Census of Population and Housing taken April 1, 1970. Summaries are given for the total population, and by the following age groups: 0-4, 5-14, 15-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65 and older, 16 and older, 18 and older and 21 and older.

This summary statistics data file contains a complete or 100-percent count of all persons in group quarters by sex and age, including ages under 1 to 74 with a category for ages 75 and over, as well as the total. The distribution is repeated for 18 race/Hispanic groups. Population in group quarters includes persons in institutional group quarters such as homes, schools, hospitals, or wards for the physically and mentally handicapped, hospitals or wards for mental, tubercular, or chronically ill patients, homes for unwed mothers, nursing, convalescent, and rest homes for the aged and dependent, orphanages, and correctional institutions. Noninstitutional group quarters include rooming and boarding houses, general hospitals, including nurses' and interns' dormitories, college students' dormitories, religious group quarters, and similar housing. Demographic items specify age, sex, state of birth, race, ethnicity, marital status, education, income, and type of group quarters lived in. Data are available for all counties and independent cities in the United States.

This data collection contains 132 Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) files from the 1970 Census of Population and Housing. Information is provided in these files on the housing unit, such as occupancy and vacancy status of house, tenure, value of property, commercial use, year structure was built, number of rooms, availability of plumbing facilities, sewage disposal, bathtub or shower, complete kitchen facilities, flush toilet, water, telephone, and air conditioning. Data are also provided on household characteristics such as the number of persons aged 18 years and younger in the household, the presence of roomers, boarders, or lodgers, the presence of other nonrelative and of relative other than wife or child of head of household, the number of persons per room, the rent paid for unit, and the number of persons with Spanish surnames. Other demographic variables provide information on age, race, marital status, place of birth, state of birth, Puerto Rican heritage, citizenship, education, occupation, employment status, size of family, farm earnings, and family income. This hierarchical data collection contains approximately 214 variables for the 15-percent sample, 227 variables for the 5-percent sample, and 117 variables for the neighborhood characteristics sample. (Source: downloaded from ICPSR 06/09/2011).

This data set represents U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) historical Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) from the 1970's that has been refined with 1990 population density at the block group level to indicate new residential development representative of the 1990's. Any area having a population density of at least 1,000 people per square mile had been re-classified as "urban" land in this data set.

In 2021, about 37.89 million people in the United States were living alone. The total number of households in the U.S. since 1960 can be found here.

The average American household consisted of 2.51 people in 2023.

Households in the U.S.

As shown in the statistic, the number of people per household has decreased over the past decades.

The U.S. Census Bureau defines a household as follows: “a household includes all the persons who occupy a housing unit as their usual place of residence. A housing unit is a house, an apartment, a mobile home, a group of rooms, or a single room that is occupied (or if vacant, is intended for occupancy) as separate living quarters. Separate living quarters are those in which the occupants live and eat separately from any other persons in the building and which have direct access from outside the building or through a common hall. The occupants may be a single family, one person living alone, two or more families living together, or any other group of related or unrelated persons who share living arrangements. (People not living in households are classified as living in group quarters.).”

The population of the United States has been growing steadily for decades. Since 1960, the number of households more than doubled from 53 million to over 131 million households in 2023.

Most of these households, about 34 percent, are two-person households. The distribution of U.S. households has changed over the years though. The percentage of single-person households has been on the rise since 1970 and made up the second largest proportion of households in the U.S. in 2022, at 28.88 percent.

In concordance with the rise of single-person households, the percentage of family households with own children living in the household has declined since 1970 from 56 percent to 40.26 percent in 2022.

This data collection contains detailed county and state-level ecological and descriptive data for the United States for the years 1790 to 2002. Parts 1-43 are an update to HISTORICAL, DEMOGRAPHIC, ECONOMIC, AND SOCIAL DATA: THE UNITED STATES, 1790-1970 (ICPSR 0003). Parts 1-41 contain data from the 1790-1970 censuses. They include extensive information about the social and political character of the United States, including a breakdown of population by state, race, nationality, number of families, size of the family, births, deaths, marriages, occupation, religion, and general economic condition. Parts 42 and 43 contain data from the 1840 and 1870 Censuses of Manufacturing, respectively. These files include information about the number of persons employed in various industries and the quantities of different types of manufactured products. Parts 44-50 provide county-level data from the United States Census of Agriculture for 1840 to 1900. They also include the state and national totals for the variables. The files provide data about the number, types, and prices of various agricultural products. Parts 51-57 contain data on religious bodies and church membership for 1906, 1916, 1926, 1936, and 1952, respectively. Parts 58-69 consist of data from the CITY DATA BOOKS for 1944, 1948, 1952, 1956, 1962, 1967, 1972, 1977, 1983, 1988, 1994, and 2000, respectively. These files contain information about population, climate, housing units, hotels, birth and death rates, school enrollment and education expenditures, employment in various industries, and city government finances. Parts 70-81 consist of data from the COUNTY DATA BOOKS for 1947, 1949, 1952, 1956, 1962, 1967, 1972, 1977, 1983, 1988, 1994, and 2000, respectively. These files include information about population, employment, housing, agriculture, manufacturing, retail, services, trade, banking, Social Security, local governments, school enrollment, hospitals, crime, and income. Parts 82-84 contain data from USA COUNTIES 1998. Due to the large number of variables from this source, the data were divided into into three separate data files. Data include information on population, vital statistics, school enrollment, educational attainment, Social Security, labor force, personal income, poverty, housing, trade, farms, ancestry, commercial banks, and transfer payments. Parts 85-106 provide data from the United States Census of Agriculture for 1910 to 2002. They provide data about the amount, types, and prices of various agricultural products. Also, these datasets contain extensive information on the amount, expenses, sales, values, and production of farms and machinery. (Source: downloaded from ICPSR 7/13/10)

Please Note: This dataset is part of the historical CISER Data Archive Collection and is also available at ICPSR -- https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02896.v3. We highly recommend using the ICPSR version, as they made this dataset available in multiple data formats and updated the data through 2002.

These Fifth-Count Tallies by school district were created from the assembled and edited 20-percent, 15-percent, and 5-percent Samples portions of the 1970 Census of Population and Housing. Population tables include tallies for age, race, sex, nativity, income, employment, poverty and children. Housing tables include tallies for persons per unit, rooms in units, value, gross rent, and year structure built. The data file is sorted within state in ascending sequence of 5-digit school district codes. School districts with populations of less than 1,000 persons are combined in the code category 99999. The SSDC staff has reformatted the ICPSR data file and documented variable column locations for the reformatted data file. See the Reformatted codebook for more information.

Polygon geometry with attributes displaying the 1970 Census tracts and respective population stats in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana.

Abstract

IPUMS-International is an effort to inventory, preserve, harmonize, and disseminate census microdata from around the world. The project has collected the world's largest archive of publicly available census samples. The data are coded and documented consistently across countries and over time to facillitate comparative research. IPUMS-International makes these data available to qualified researchers free of charge through a web dissemination system.

The IPUMS project is a collaboration of the Minnesota Population Center, National Statistical Offices, and international data archives. Major funding is provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Demographic and Behavioral Sciences Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Additional support is provided by the University of Minnesota Office of the Vice President for Research, the Minnesota Population Center, and Sun Microsystems.

Geographic coverage

National coverage

Analysis unit

Households and Group Quarters

UNITS IDENTIFIED: - Dwellings: No - Vacant units: Yes

UNIT DESCRIPTIONS: - Households: Dwelling places with fewer than five persons unrelated to a household head, excluding institutions and transient quarters. - Group quarters: Institutions, transient quarters, and dwelling places with five or more persons unrelated to a household head.

Universe

Residents of Puerto Rico.

Kind of data

Census/enumeration data [cen]

Sampling procedure

MICRODATA SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau

SAMPLE UNIT: Household

SAMPLE FRACTION: 1%

SAMPLE SIZE (person records): 27,212

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

One in five housing units in 1970 received a long form containing supplemental sample questions. Three independent 1 percent public use samples were produced for 1970, each privileging a particular geography: neighborhood, municipio, and "state". IPUMS-International uses the municipio sample.

Response rate

UNDERCOUNT: No official estimates

From 1921 until 1970, the number of people migrating away from farms was higher than the number of people moving to farms in almost every year. The only times where the farming population saw higher immigration than emigration were during the Great Depression and after the Second World War.

"The data are presented in 55 tables containing 400 population and housing data cells. Population items included are age, race, sex, marital status, and relationship to head of household. Cross-tabulations of population items include age and sex, and Negro and other races (except White) by age and sex. Housing items include vacancy status, tenure, rent value, plumbing facilities, etc. Housing items cross- tabulated include aggregate number of persons by tenure, and race of head and families b y plumbing facilities. This file is also known as ""First Count.""" File A gives summaries for each State and for each enumeration district or block group. File B provides summaries for the States, counties, minor civil divisions (MCD's) or census county divisions, places, and congressional districts.Data contained in the files pertain to the date of the census, April 1, 1970

Graph and download economic data for Population, Total for United States (POPTOTUSA647NWDB) from 1960 to 2024 about population and USA.

Detailed county and state-level ecological or descriptive data for the United States for the years 1790 to 1970 are contained in this collection. These data files contain extensive information about the social and political character of the United States, including a breakdown of population by state, race, nationality, number of families, size of the family, births, deaths, marriages, occupation, religion, and general economic conditions. Though not complete over the full time span of this study, statistics are available on such diverse subjects as total numbers of newspapers and periodicals, total capital invested in manufacturing, total numbers of educational institutions, total number of churches, taxation by state, and land surface area in square miles.