A new report on the undercount of young children in the 2020 Census also provides a comparison between 2010 and 2020 Census efforts in counting young children. It “provides an overview of the research and new activities related to the net undercount of young children that occurred as planning for the 2020 Census began,” including “a review of new activity within the Census Bureau, mobilization of researchers and advocates on this issue outside the Census Bureau, and how the Census Bureau and the child advocacy community worked together on this problem.”
The report focuses “on the net undercount of young children in recent U.S. Censuses,” but notes that the “issue is bigger than the 2010 U.S. Census. Over the past 70 years, the U.S. Census has seen a consistently high net undercount of young children and there is an under-reporting of young children in major Census Bureau surveys…. Young children have high net undercounts in many other countries around the world…. In other words, this problem exists in many different cultures with different census-taking traditions. Despite changes in the U.S. Census Bureau methods over the past 70 years, as well as fundamental changes in U.S. society, the undercount of young children has remained high.”
- “Counting Young Children in the U.S. Census – Important Differences Between 2010 and 2020.” by Deborah H. Griffin and William P. O’Hare. March 29, 2022. https://civilrightsdocs.info/pdf/reports/Counting-Young-Children-in-the-Census-Report.pdf