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Midwives in the United States

In honor of a friend of ours, on her birthday, we thought we’d post a market size about the number of births in the United States that are attended to by midwives. Many people believe that midwives deliver primarily babies born outside of hospitals but this is not true. The vast majority of the births attended to by midwives (96.7%) are hospital births. Overall, in 2006—the most recent year for which data are available—off the total number of births registered in the United States, 8.7% were attended to by a midwife. In Europe, by way of comparison, that percentage tends to be in the 75% range. Our friend, she is midwife practicing at a hospital in France.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2006
Market size: Births attended by a Midwife in the United States, 336,347 or 8.7% of all registered births
Source: “Trends and Characteristics of Home and Other Out-of-Hospital Births in the United States, 1990-2006,” National Vital Statistics Report, Volume 58, Number 1, March 3, 2010, available online here.
Original source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics

Highway Miles Driven

During this holiday week in which many people will be traveling, we present some market sizes for travel, measured in the number of passenger-miles traveled by different modes of transportation. Today, the miles we travel on highways in passenger cars (56.8% of the total), motorcycles (0.4% of total) and what the Department of Transportation calls “other 2-axle, 4-tire vehicles” (42.8% of total).

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2008
Market size: 4,493 Billion Passenger-Miles
Source: “Table 1-37: U.S. Passenger Miles (Millions),” Bureau of Transporation Statistics, National Transportation Statistics, available online here.

Miles Traveled by Air

During this holiday week in which many people will be traveling, we present some market sizes for travel, measured in the number of passenger-miles traveled by different modes of transportation. Today we look at air travel. Air carrier passenger-miles are computed by summing the products of the aircraft-miles flown on each inter airport segment multiplied by the number of passengers carried on that segment. Air travel has seen steady growth over the years as can be seen in the chart, produced with data in the source listed below.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2008
Market size: 583,506 Million Passenger-Miles
Source: “Table 1-37: U.S. Passenger Miles (Millions),” Bureau of Transporation Statistics, National Transportation Statistics, available online here.

Market for Cement in Brazil

Many nations in Latin America have recovered far more quickly from the global downturn that began in 2008 than has the United States. As a basic building material, the demand for cement serves as an indicator of how the construction industry is faring from country to country. Brazil’s construction industry is doing quite well and is forecast to grow sharply over the next five years. The market sizes presented here are based on demand for cement and the figure for 2015 is a forecast by the source.

Geographic reference: Brazil
Year: 2010 and 2015
Market size: 58 Million and 75 Million metric tons respectively
Source: “News North and South America: Brazil forecast to experience big growth,” Global Cement Magazine, November 2010, page 41.

Cement Market in Thailand

Asia has recovered far more quickly from the global downturn that began in 2008 than have the industrialized nations of Europe and the Americas. Complicating matters for the industrialized nations, and in particular the United States, is the nature of the bubble that burst to create the downturn. It was the housing market that was being bet on to inflate the bubble and when that crashed, the overbuilding which took place during the bubble growth period left the construction industry in serious trouble. But, that trouble is not seen everywhere in the world. As a basic building material, the demand for cement serves as an indicator of how the construction industry is faring nation by nation. Thailand has seen healthy growth in the demand for cement in 2010 despite the upheaval caused by flooding in that nation during the late summer.

Geographic reference: Thailand
Year: 2010
Market size: 24 Million metric tons
Source: “News Asia: Siam Cement Group profits down slightly,” Global Cement Magazine, November 2010, page 43.
Original Source: Siam Cement Group

Muslim Population

Today is Eid al Adha, an important Muslim holiday which marks the end of Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. The name of this holiday is usually translated as “Festival of Sacrifice”. With a nod of recognition of this holiday we look today at the size of the muslim population worldwide. We have always used the term “market” quite broadly on this site, measuring everything from the size of the market for cement to the size of the voting population and the size of the demand for pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns, and candy around Halloween.

The population size presented here is taken from a Pew Research Center report which provides a great deal of interesting information about Muslims around the word. A link to that report is provided in the source note below.

Geographic reference: World
Year: 2009
Market size: 1.57 Billion
Source: “Mapping the Global Muslim Population; A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population,” The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, October 7, 2009, available online here.
Original source: Pew Research Center

Chiropractic Services

The market size presented here is based on revenue from all offices offering primarily chiropractic services in the United States. The Bureau of the Census definition for this industry reads as follows: “This industry comprises establishments of health practitioners having the degree of D.C. (Doctor of Chiropractic) primarily engaged in the independent practice of chiropractic. These practitioners provide diagnostic and therapeutic treatment of neuromusculoskeletal and related disorders through the manipulation and adjustment of the spinal column and extremities, and operate private or group practices in their own offices (e.g., centers, clinics) or in the facilities of others, such as hospitals or HMO medical centers.”

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 1997 and 2007
Market size: $6.57 Billion and $10.15 Billion in annual receipts respectively
Source: “2007 Economic Census: Sector 62: Health Care and Social Assistance Programs: Preliminary Comparative Statistics for the United States 2007 and 2002”, March 26, 2010, [Online] here. Data for 1997 are from a report by the same title in the “1997 Economic Census” series.
Original Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census

Veteran Population

The number of military veterans in the United States is our focus on this Veterans Day.

The chart we present here shows three population figures over more than a half century: Active Duty Military, Military Veterans, and the overall population, by way of comparison. The veterans population is shown as the dark blue columns along the bottom of the chart.

We offer our sincere thanks to all those who have served—or are serving—this country in one of our military branches.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 1980 and 2008
Market size: 28.6 Million and 23.2 Million respectively
Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States, editions 1980, 1990 and 2010. Recent editions are available online here.
Original Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census

Iron Ore Mining

Today we look at iron ore, as a sort of hat tip to the anniversary of the sinking of the Great Lakes Freighter, the Edmund Fitzgerald, thirty-five years ago today. The Fitzgerald was carrying iron ore pellets.

The Bureau of the Census definition of iron ore mining reads as follows: “This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in (1) developing mine sites, mining, and/or beneficiating (i.e., preparing) iron ores and manganiferous ores valued chiefly for their iron content and/or (2) producing sinter iron ore (except iron ore produced in iron and steel mills) and other iron ore agglomerates.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2007
Market size: $2.96 Trillion (value of primary product shipments)
Source: “2007 Economic Census: Sector 21: Mining: Preliminary Comparative Statistics for the United States 2007 and 2002”, October 16, 2009, [Online] here.
Original Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census

Coal Mining Industry

The United States has the largest proven coal reserves in the world. The market size presented here is based on employment within the U.S. coal mining industry.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2009
Market size: 87,755 people
Source: “Annual Coal Report, 2009,” October 1, 2010.
Original Source: Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy