I’m curious about what kind of demographic phenomenon would be taking place that would give a city or town in North America an overwhelmingly large population of women in their 50s and early 60s, without a correspondingly large population of men the same age.
American Library Association’s annual conference is in town?
I don’t know if it’s overwhelming, but my little town has considerably more middle-aged single women than men. They’re widows or divorcees and housing is cheap here.
Maybe it’s the only town in the area that gets the Lifetime channel. They love “Army Wives.”
One example is Northampton, MA. It is that way because that’s just the way they roll over there.
And you thought that all of those Stepford Wives had no concept of revenge!
Are you counting in stores/malls, or in bars/sports stadiums?
Since the OP is obviously subject to confirmation bias, why not name the city and let us check the census data?
Babyboomers?
Good question. At one point in time Reno NV had a heck of a female population - you could get a divorce there if you were a resident and it took IIRC 6 weeks to become a resident and do the court work for the divorce. Women would move there and live in the hotels until they got their divorce. Perhaps there is some draw to this community like that?
For the city:
US Census 2010
50 to 54 years
Men 397
Women 504
55 to 64 years
Men 840
Women 914
For the county:
50 to 54 years
Men: 2,691
Women: 3,499
55 to 59 years
Men: 2,923
Women: 2,981
Obviously confirmation bias. :rolleyes:
Besides, I’m trying to figure out what the reasons are that would result in such a weighted population wherever it might exist, not, not whether it exists in one locale.
What city is it? We can’t really say unless you tell us what it is. Northampton, MA is skewed heavily female because it is known as ‘Lesbianville USA’ and attracts lots of women for that reason. It is also home to all female Smith College. I doubt that applies to yours but there may be another logical reason.
Percentages of the overall population by age group
40 to 44 years Men 3.6% Women 3.5%
45 to 49 years Men 3.4% Women 3.1%
50 to 54 years Men 2.9% Women 4.5%
55 to 59 years Men 3.4% Women 3.2%
60 to 64 years Men 1.0% Women 3.2%
ePodunk lesbian index is in the low 300s, gay in the mid 100s, but why just the bump in the 50s/early 60s, and not all around? No all-female colleges around.
The question "What city is it? " has a factual answer.
Is it impossible to understand that without knowing the city any answers we provide have exactly as much weight as saying that aliens are absconding with the men?
If all you want are WAGs without any foundation in fact, ask a mod to move this out of GQ,
Widowhood?
What were the percentages for ages 65 and up?
My kneejerk reaction at reading the OP was to imagine a local industry that employs more men than women and lowers life expectancy. A mining town, perhaps.
To answer this question, we’d need to know not only what the particular gender imbalance in this town’s population is, but also how unlikely it is that such a town could have such a gender imbalance just by random chance.
Your town is evidently so small that just a couple hundred women in the 50’s age range are throwing off the gender balance. I’m not convinced that that’s an anomaly that needs explaining rather than merely an unremarkable random demographic fluctuation.
There are many different reasons that such imbalances occur, not least of them random chance. Just as no family has exactly 1.7 children or whatever the average figure is now, very few locations have demographics that exactly reflect the national averages.
Or you can stop acting like you moderate this forum.
Was there an all-female college there 30 years ago?