TOP STORY
Among Boston households, most are now nonfamily
By Cindy Rodriguez, Globe Staff, 5/26/2001
 oston is no longer a city of families.
For the first time in history, nonfamily households are the majority.
Newly released 2000 Census data shows that 124,432 of the city's 239,528 homes, or 51.9 percent, are either people living alone or with unrelated adults.
The increase says a lot about America's movement away from traditional family structures.
More couples live together instead of marrying, and a higher percentage of people are either living alone, with friends, or with their gay partner.
Nowhere is that more evident than in metropolitan cities such as Boston.
Since 1990, Boston lost 2,244 married couples, but gained 1,015 families headed by unmarried women and an additional 398 families headed by unmarried men.
In fact, families headed by unmarried men and women make up 42.8 percent of all the family households in the city - a far cry from 1950 when married couples made up 76.6 percent of all family households in Boston.
But unlike officials in other cities decrying the decline of the nuclear family, Boston leaders say people are just thinking outside-of-the-box when it comes to family.
''We're recognizing that there are a lot more nontraditional families. They may not be related legally or by blood, but they are still loving relationships,'' said Juanita N. Wade, chief of Human Services for the city of Boston. ''If two people who love each other live together, then that's a family.''
This story ran on page B01 of the Boston Globe on 5/22/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.
Graphical looks at the Mass. census
Population changes in the 14 Massachusetts counties by percentage.
(Boston.com Staff Graphic)
 See the numbers, by county
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Racial breakdown in 2000:
Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders make up 0.27% of the population, which rounds to zero.
Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders make up 0.46% of the population, which rounds to zero.
* Latinos may be of any race. Figures for other races represent the non-Latino portions of each race.
Congressional changes:
 122K PDF 51K GIF
Population changes, town-by-town:
146k PDF
46K GIF
Racial makeup:
1M PDF
63K GIF
Population by town
Population by age
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Massachusetts at a glance
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Total population: 6,349,097
Get data sets of Mass figures released March 21 -- including PDFs, Excel, and large ZIP files:
Click here
| White: |
5,367,286 |
| Black: |
343,454 |
| Native American: |
15,015 |
| Asian: |
238,124 |
| Pacific Islander: |
2,489 |
| Other: |
236,724 |
| Biracial: |
138,177 |
| Multiracial: |
146,005 |
| Hispanic population: |
428,729 |
| Non-Hispanic population: |
5,920,368 |
| Voting age population: |
4,849,033 |
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Under 18 population: |
1,500,064 |
Info from the U.S. Census Bureau:
Census Bureau online
www.census.gov
Census databases
factfinder.census.gov
Download a copy of the 2000 Census long forms:
627K PDF
Mass. Institute for Social and Economic Research:
www.umass.edu/miser/
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