The Census Bureau has just released a new batch of 2016 survey results on a topic drives many life insurance, long-term care insurance and retirement planning sales: births.
(Related: Census Table Shows 37-Year-Olds Are Great Prospects)
The agency posted a big file of birth data along with files on other topics, such as income, health insurance ownership and disability status.
The birth numbers file might be one of the most useful ones for marketers, because having a baby creates an obvious need for personal protection insurance products.
One problem: The file classifies people in households that earn just 200% of the federal poverty level, or $32,480 for a family of two in most of the country, as high-income.
For financial professionals, looking at the columns showing birth numbers broken out by the mom’s education level may be a better way to identify communities with a large number of new parents who can afford more insurance.
Some people with weak finances have doctorates, and some self-made millionaires are grade school dropouts. But, on average, people with more education tend to earn more and buy more financial services products.
(Related: 4 Reasons Americans Skip LTC Insurance)
We crunched the new Census Bureau data and calculated the number of women with bachelor’s degrees or graduate degrees who had given birth in the previous 12 months.
To put those numbers in context, we also created a 2016 birth rate index for highly educated moms: the number of women with bachelor’s degrees or higher, in each community, who had given birth in the previous 12 months, per 1,000 female residents, ages 15 to 50, with all levels of education.
In the 480 places that are in the table, the raw number of highly educated new moms ranged from just 19, in Reading, Pennsylvania, up to 44,427, in New York City.
The 2016 birth rate index for highly educated moms ranged from a low of 0.8, in East Los Angeles, up to a high of 60, in one community in Texas.
Half of the places in the table had a birth rate index for highly educated moms over 16.6.
The communities with the 22 highest highly educated new mom index rates all had rates over 40.
The two communities that just missed being in the top 20 were Hoover, Alabama, and McKinney, Texas.
Of course, financial professionals should look at any “top 20″ or “bottom 20″ list with a skeptical eye. You can do your own analyses (and get copyright-free data you can include in your own presentations, blog posts and presentations) from the Census Bureau here.
For a look at the places that ranked in the top 20 in terms of their 2016 highly educated new mom index rates, along with a table giving data for all 480 communities, read on.
(Video: Josh B. Edelman/YouTube)
20. Coral Springs, Florida
Number of women ages 15-50: 33,410
Births to women with bachelor’s degree or higher: 1,346
Births to women with bachelor’s degree or higher, per 1,000 women ages 15-50: 40.3
19. South Jordan, Utah
Number of women ages 15-50: 16,532
Births to women with bachelor’s degrees or higher: 677
Births to women with bachelor’s degree or higher, per 1,000 women ages 15-50: 41.0
18. Lynchburg, Virginia
Number of women ages 15-50: 24,356
Births to women with bachelor’s degrees or higher: 1,019
Births to women with bachelor’s degree or higher, per 1,000 women ages 15-50: 41.8
17. Sugar Land, Texas
Number of women ages 15-50: 19,992
Births to women with bachelor’s degrees or higher: 856
Births to women with bachelor’s degree or higher, per 1,000 women ages 15-50: 42.8
16. Casas Adobes, Arizona
Number of women ages 15-50: 16,068
Births to women with bachelor’s degrees or higher: 690
Births to women with bachelor’s degree or higher, per 1,000 women ages 15-50: 42.9
(Video: Jessi Sgarlata & The Southbound Group/YouTube)
15. Franklin, Tennessee
Number of women ages 15-50: 17,838
Births to women with bachelor’s degrees: or higher 777
Births to women with bachelor’s degree or higher, per 1,000 women ages 15-50: 43.6
14. Carlsbad, California
Number of women ages 15-50: 26,600
Births to women with bachelor’s degrees or higher: 1,174
Births to women with bachelor’s degree or higher, per 1,000 women ages 15-50: 44.1
13. Melbourne, Florida
Number of women ages 15-50: 15,631
Births to women with bachelor’s degrees or higher: 716
Births to women with bachelor’s degree or higher, per 1,000 women ages 15-50: 45.8
12. Rockville, Maryland
Number of women ages 15-50: 16,202