African-American History Month – Top 5 Things We Learned from Public Data

In honor of African-American History Month, we wanted to provide the top 5 interesting facts based on current and historical statistics for African-Americans and African-American workers in North Carolina.

1. Employment Gap Narrowed

At different times in North Carolina history, African-Americans were more likely to have a job than Whites.¹ From 1870 through 1940², a greater percentage of African-Americans had an occupation than Whites.  This changed by 1950, when 39.0% of Whites had a job versus 38.1% of African-Americans.  This distinction grew to its biggest difference by 1980.  The most recent measure shows a narrowing of this gap with 59.4% of Whites with a job compared with 54.3% of African-Americans.

2. African-Americans and Whites Used to Work Different Occupations from Each Other

As we moved from a largely Agricultural based economy to a services-based economy, the most common types of occupations also changed.  While the types of occupations performed over this time period changed considerably, eventually, African-Americans and Whites became represented in the same top occupations.

The top 3 types of occupations for selected years for African-Americans and Whites in North Carolina include:

3.    Today, African-Americans Work in the Same Occupations and Industries as Overall Population

Occupations worked

As shown above, today African-Americans largely work in the same occupations as the overall population.  The top occupational categories for all workers in North Carolina for 2015 include (African-American percentages in parentheses)³:

• Management, business, science, and arts occupations (27.4%)
• Sales and office occupations (24.8%)
• Service occupations (22.7%)
• Production, transportation, and material moving occupations (19.7%)
• Natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations (5.4%)

Industries worked

In 2015, the top 3 industries that African-Americans work in are the same as those that the overall population work in.

Over one in four (28.0%) of African-American civilian workers work in educational services, and health care and social assistance (23.0% of overall civilian employed population).  Other top industries that African-Americans work in are:

• Manufacturing (13.5% of African-Americans; 12.5% of Overall)
• Retail Trade (11.3% of African-Americans; 11.8% of Overall)
• Arts, entertainment, and recreation, and accommodation and food services (10.3% of African-Americans; 9.5% of Overall)
• Professional, scientific, and management, and administrative and waste management services (8.7% of African-Americans; 10.7% of Overall)

4. Health Care Industry Represents the Top African-American Owned Firms in North Carolina 

There are 5,540 Black or African-American firms in North Carolina in 2014.

The industries that are represented the most among these 5,540 firms include:

5. Proportion of African-Americans in North Carolina Projected to Remain Steady through 2036

There are 2,219,781 African-Americans living in North Carolina as of July 1, 2015.

• They represent 22.1% of all residents in the state.
• 559,263 are under 18 years old (25.2%).
• 1,178,458 are women (53.1%).
• This represents a 1.1% increase of African-Americans over July 1, 2014.

The projected African-American population is 2,751,975 in North Carolina on July 1, 2036.

• This represents 22.4% of all projected residents in the state.

The three counties with the largest African-American populations are the three largest counties in the state.  Mecklenburg County has the largest African-American population among North Carolina counties at 339,523, followed by Wake County at 221,870, and Guilford County at 178,280.  

The North Carolina counties with the highest percentages of African-Americans are:

• Bertie (61.7%)
• Hertford (59.8%)
• Northampton (58.4%)
• Edgecombe (57.5%)
• Halifax (53.7%)

Source: NC Office of State Budget and Management. 2015 County Estimates & Projections.

¹Technically, the measure used here for occupation also includes values for occupations, as well as ‘non-occupational’ responses such as keeps house, helping at home, at school/student, retired, unemployed, invalid/disables, inmate, new worker, gentleman/lady at leisure, other non-occupation, and occupation missing.  The values we use for having a job are those aged 16 and older with a classifiable occupation in broad categories based on 1950 occupation codes from the IPUMS-USA database.
²1890 data is missing due to a fire destroying Census Records.
³Categories above are broad historical categories while categories presented below reflect current classification categories.