Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: cohousing demographics

[Poley, Lisa (lpoley]

Joelyn said:
   
<  It has been fun to read this exchange of ideas on the demographics of
  our communities. IMO, it would make a great article for the Cohousing
  Journal. Anybody game for collecting all the comments and writing it
   up?>

I have completed a dissertation research project on Cohousing in which I
conducted a 2006 survey of cohousing residents nationwide.  I got 647
(self-selected) replies to an on-line survey from  residents of 56
different U.S. coho communities.  The survey included a number of
demographic questions - and I did cross reference this information
against  community profile data available on the Cohousing website in
2006. 

The demographic profile of those who participated in the on-line survey
was as follows:

-Male/Female ratio: 36% male, 64% female
- HH Income levels/year: 12% 30K or less; 21% 30-50K; 43% 50-100k; 21%
more than 100K; 3% no answer.
- Education levels:  59% graduate or professional degree; 12% some grad
school; 21% Bachelors Degree; 2% associates degree; 5% some college; 1%
high school diploma. 0% less than high school. 
- Race of respondent: 92% white; 2% Asian; 1% Latino; 1% African
American; 4% 'other'


Keep in mind that the on-line survey had self-selected participation -
and it is possible that this would account for some skew in the data -
but based on comparison with aggregated profile data publicly available
on individual communities - these figures seemed to be pretty close....

Interesting huh? 

It is also interesting to note that all but 5% of survey respondents
identified themselves as 'liberal leaning' on the political spectrum,
about 90% of respondents reported owning their own home and nearly half
of respondents had been in their Coho homes for more than 5 years. 

I have been meaning to write an article (or a couple) for the Cohousing
or Communities magazine on my research results for 6 months now - but
have been too busy. If someone from  the list would like to collaborate
though I would be interested in getting that going. 

Lisa Poley
Shadowlake Village Cohousing
Blacksburg VA