Share widowed and Economic connectedness in high school
Across 2,723 counties, Share widowed and Economic connectedness in high school have a link of -0.56, on a scale from −1 (opposite) to +1 (in step). But compare places with the same population density, income and education, and a very weak link of -0.18 remains. Most of the first figure came from both measures following how urban, rich and educated a place is, not from a link with each other.
Mostly gone after adjusting
Every place, plotted
One dot for each place reporting both measures. Hover over or tap a dot to see its name and values. The thin line is the straight line that best fits the dots. The bold line, shown for counties, is the link after adjusting for density, income and education. A dot far from the lines is a place that does not follow the pattern.
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What each measure is
Share widowed
The percentage of people aged 15 and over whose spouse has died. It mostly follows how old the population is, so it is close to a second measure of a county's age.
Census ACS 5-year · ACS table B12001_009…B12001_018 (2 cells), divided by population aged 15 and over
Economic connectedness in high school
How many of a low-income teenager's high school friends are high-income, compared with an even mix. It is counted in the county of the school, not where the person lives as an adult, so it describes where people grew up.
Social Capital Atlas · Opportunity Insights child_ec_county
Highest and lowest
Where each measure is highest and lowest among the places reporting both (2023), with the other measure beside it. This is shown for every size of place where both are published. Metro-area values are added up from their counties. A measure that cannot be added up across counties, such as a middle value (median), has no metro figure. Counts are shown per 1,000 residents, since raw totals would only list the largest places. Cities and towns and ZIP codes are shown where the Census survey or the CDC publishes them; most other sources stop at the county. They are shown for places of 5,000 residents or more, and only where the survey’s margin of error is small enough for the figure to be usable. The CDC publishes its health estimates for cities in a version adjusted for age, so places with older or younger people can be compared fairly, but not for ZIP codes.
Counties
By share widowed
| Share widowed | Economic connectedness in high school | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Pulaski County, GA | 15.1% | 0.698 |
| Nevada County, AR | 13.8% | 0.471 |
| McDowell County, WV | 13.8% | 0.282 |
| Stone County, AR | 13.5% | 0.448 |
| Lancaster County, VA | 13% | 0.822 |
| Lowest | ||
| Madison County, ID | 1.46% | 1.52 |
| Summit County, CO | 1.8% | 1.04 |
| Gunnison County, CO | 2.4% | 0.859 |
| Utah County, UT | 2.54% | 1.39 |
| Arlington County, VA | 2.73% | 1.39 |
By economic connectedness in high school
| Share widowed | Economic connectedness in high school | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Calvert County, MD | 5.23% | 1.61 |
| Hunterdon County, NJ | 4.48% | 1.58 |
| Howard County, MD | 4.46% | 1.56 |
| Loudoun County, VA | 3.34% | 1.55 |
| Stafford County, VA | 3.64% | 1.53 |
| Lowest | ||
| Magoffin County, KY | 8.5% | 0.222 |
| Leslie County, KY | 10.6% | 0.229 |
| Breathitt County, KY | 9% | 0.249 |
| Knox County, KY | 8.74% | 0.257 |
| McCreary County, KY | 6.9% | 0.265 |
States — Economic connectedness in high school is not published for states
By share widowed
| Share widowed | Economic connectedness in high school | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| West Virginia | 7.93% | — |
| Puerto Rico | 7.85% | — |
| Mississippi | 7.06% | — |
| Alabama | 6.88% | — |
| Arkansas | 6.86% | — |
| Lowest | ||
| District of Columbia | 3.41% | — |
| Utah | 3.51% | — |
| Alaska | 4.09% | — |
| Colorado | 4.11% | — |
| Washington | 4.61% | — |
Metro areas
By share widowed
| Share widowed | Economic connectedness in high school | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Mountain Home, AR | 11.2% | 0.573 |
| Martinsville, VA | 10.8% | 0.501 |
| Middlesborough, KY | 10.6% | 0.283 |
| Wildwood-The Villages, FL | 10.5% | 0.568 |
| Selma, AL | 10.4% | 0.564 |
| Lowest | ||
| Breckenridge, CO | 1.8% | 1.04 |
| Rexburg, ID | 2.1% | 1.19 |
| Provo-Orem-Lehi, UT | 2.56% | 1.38 |
| Heber, UT | 2.88% | 1.26 |
| Logan, UT-ID | 2.92% | 1.24 |
By economic connectedness in high school
| Share widowed | Economic connectedness in high school | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Lexington Park, MD | 5.24% | 1.54 |
| Los Alamos, NM | 3.6% | 1.41 |
| Williston, ND | 3.82% | 1.39 |
| Fairbanks-College, AK | 3.59% | 1.38 |
| Provo-Orem-Lehi, UT | 2.56% | 1.38 |
| Lowest | ||
| Middlesborough, KY | 10.6% | 0.283 |
| Pikeville, KY | 9.24% | 0.338 |
| Deming, NM | 8.73% | 0.35 |
| Clarksdale, MS | 8.64% | 0.362 |
| Corbin, KY | 7.82% | 0.362 |
Cities and towns — Economic connectedness in high school is not published for cities and towns
By share widowed
| Share widowed | Economic connectedness in high school | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Leisure World CDP, MD | 24.3% | — |
| Holiday City-Berkeley CDP, NJ | 23.8% | — |
| Crestwood Village CDP, NJ | 23.2% | — |
| South Pasadena city, FL | 22.3% | — |
| The Meadows CDP, FL | 21% | — |
| Lowest | ||
| University of California-Santa Barbara CDP, CA | 0% | — |
| Lemoore Station CDP, CA | 0% | — |
| Fort Irwin CDP, CA | 0% | — |
| Camp Pendleton South CDP, CA | 0% | — |
| Fort Rucker CDP, AL | 0% | — |
ZIP codes — Economic connectedness in high school is not published for ZIP codes
By share widowed
| Share widowed | Economic connectedness in high school | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| ZIP 92637 (Laguna Woods city, CA) | 20.5% | — |
| ZIP 85351 (Sun City CDP, AZ) | 18.6% | — |
| ZIP 08759 (Ocean County, NJ) | 18.5% | — |
| ZIP 07444 (Pompton Plains CDP, NJ) | 17.9% | — |
| ZIP 33484 (Palm Beach County, FL) | 17.3% | — |
| Lowest | ||
| ZIP 06269 (Storrs CDP, CT) | 0% | — |
| ZIP 01003 (Amherst Town city, MA) | 0% | — |
| ZIP 99703 (Fairbanks city, AK) | 0% | — |
| ZIP 94720 (Berkeley city, CA) | 0% | — |
| ZIP 93410 (California Polytechnic State University CDP, CA) | 0% | — |
Counties furthest from the pattern
Compared with the straight line that best fits all 2,725 counties: the five with far more economic connectedness in high school than their share widowed would suggest, and the five with far less.
| Share widowed | Economic connectedness in high school | |
|---|---|---|
| Above the line | ||
| Wells County, ND | 10.6% | 1.3 |
| Calvert County, MD | 5.23% | 1.61 |
| Talbot County, MD | 9.3% | 1.3 |
| Mathews County, VA | 10.1% | 1.18 |
| Hunterdon County, NJ | 4.48% | 1.58 |
| Below the line | ||
| Holmes County, MS | 6.44% | 0.273 |
| Martin County, KY | 6.2% | 0.297 |
| Metcalfe County, KY | 6.63% | 0.27 |
| McCreary County, KY | 6.9% | 0.265 |
| Fleming County, KY | 5.55% | 0.397 |
Two series, one county
Both measures over time for a county you pick. The two charts are stacked, so they share only the years along the bottom. You can pick from the thirty largest counties reporting both. This panel covers 2010–2024, and a measure published only once shows as a single dot.
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Every version of the link
Each row measures the same link, from −1 to +1, in a different way. If the rows mostly agree, the link does not depend on one choice of method.
| Before adjusting for anything | -0.561 | 2,723 counties reporting both |
| After adjusting for density, income and education | -0.178 | the part of the link that is not just how urban, rich and educated a place is |
| Also adjusting for population size | -0.156 | size taken out as well as density |
| Also comparing only within each state | -0.151 | each county is compared only with others in its own state, so this is no longer a comparison between states |
| Giving bigger counties more weight | -0.148 | the adjusted link for the average resident rather than the average county. With this weighting, the data counts for about 284 equally weighted counties |
| Middle value inside single states | -0.566 | the link worked out inside each of 39 states with at least 20 counties reporting |
| Using ranks, after adjusting | -0.133 | uses each county’s rank, not its value, so a few extreme counties cannot create the link |
How much to believe it
Could it be chance?
The p-value is the chance of seeing a link this strong if there were really none. A value of 0.05 or less means the link is unlikely to be chance. Very small values are written in short form: 3.1e-16 means 0.00000000000000031, and the bigger the number after “e-”, the smaller the value. Treating every county as a separate case gives p = 9.8e-21. But counties in the same state tend to resemble each other, so the better figure allows for that: p = 3.7e-5. The site tested 20,910 pairs, and testing so many turns up some flukes. The q-value allows for that too. For this pair it is 3.2e-20.
Do nearby places look alike?
Moran’s I measures how much nearby places look alike: 0 means no map pattern, and higher means neighbours are more similar. For the part of each county that the adjustment leaves unexplained, it is +0.37 (p = 0.001). That unexplained part still clusters on the map. So some regional factor shared by both measures is not accounted for.
Did they change together?
Not measurable: at least one of these is published for too few of the years a change needs (2014–2019 or 2019–2023), or for too few counties in both.
Related pairs
- Median household income and Economic connectedness in high school — +0.62
- Share aged 65 and over and Share widowed — +0.55
- Median age and Share widowed — +0.53
- Share widowed and Congregations per 10,000 people — +0.37
- Median household income and Share widowed — -0.34
- Per capita income and Share widowed — +0.32
- Share in the same house a year ago and Share widowed — +0.31
- Local income tax collected and Economic connectedness in high school — -0.31
Association only. Nothing here shows that either measure changes the other. This describes counties, not the people in them. Two measures going together across places does not mean the same people have both. How the US county data works · Explore Share widowed and Economic connectedness in high school