To Verify…

A column of current statistics selected especially for Christian communicators

Percentage of teenagers who say they throw pennies they receive into the garbage: 13

Percentage of American women who say that if they could afford it, they would rather stay at home with their children: 88

Percentage of couples getting married between 1970 and 1985 who had lived together first: 40

Amount that Americans gambled legally in 1988: $208 billion

Gross national product of Austria for 1988: $109 billion

Percentage of Americans who abstain from the use of alcohol: 35

Percentage of Americans who would remarry their spouse if they had it to do over again: 85

Federal prison inmates in America, in 1978: 277,473

In 1988: 577,474

For every dollar budgeted in 1970, the amount you must budget in 1989, simply to stay even with inflation: $3.23

Percentage of young adults who say they were forced to have sexual intercourse at least once before age 20: 7

Number of Bibles in the average American home: 4

What Men & Women Talk About

Men and women don’t necessarily want to discuss the same subjects, according to a recent poll of 1,000 adults by Bruskin Associates.

The leading discussion subject for men was news events (talked about by 71 percent of respondents in the previous week), followed by work (68 percent).

Women, on the other hand, talked about food (76 percent) and health (72 percent).

Men were far more likely to have talked about sports (65 percent to women’s 42 percent); women were more likely to have discussed personal problems (52 percent to men’s 40 percent).

But many subjects-television, money, and celebrities, for example-were discussed about the same amount by either sex. And neither men nor women talked much about sex (men: 2 percent; women: 0.8 percent) or clothes (men: 0.2 percent; women: 1.8 percent).

– Reported in U.S. News & World Report, 5/15/89

Cities Spread

The suburbs continue to gobble up rural America. In 1950, 44 percent of Americans lived outside metropolitan areas, but by 1987, that number had shrunk to 23 percent. Or to put it another way, over three-fourths of all Americans now live in metropolitan areas.

In the 1980s alone, metropolitan counties grew almost twice as fast as did rural counties, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The Bureau defines nonmetropolitan areas as counties in which there is no urban area of 50,000 or more people. By this definition, for example. New Jersey is now 100 percent metropolitan.

-Reported in U.S. News & World Report, 3/13/89

Teens Still Believe

The vast majority of U.S. teenagers believe in God or a universal spirit. A recent Gallup Youth Survey found that 95 percent of teenagers believe in “God or a universal spirit,” and 77 percent believe in a personal God-one who observes their actions and rewards or punishes.

– Reported in PRRC Emerging Trends, 5/89

SOURCES – Pennies: New York Daily News, reported in Chicago Tribune, 8/25/89. Stay-at-home desires: 100% American by Daniel E. Weiss (Poseidon Press, 1988), reported by the Los Angeles Daily News. Living together: Study by Larry Bumpass, University of Wisconsin, reported in Single Adult Ministries Journal, 5/89. Gambling: Time, 7/10/89; Austrian Trade Commission, Chicago Office. Alcohol abstinence and Marriage again: 100% American by Daniel E. Weiss (Poseidon Press, 1988), reported by the Los Angeles Daily News. Prisoners: U.S. Department of Justice, reported in U.S. News & World Report, 6/24/89. Inflation: Stewardship USA newsletter, 6/89. Forced sex: Child Trends, Inc., reported in USA Today, 7/13/89. Home Bibles: Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, reported in The Christian Sourcebook by Carol Ward (Ballantine, 1986).

Leadership Winter 1989 p. 35