Studio Share
The share of housing units that have no bedroom.
The share of housing units in a tract that have no bedroom — the category commonly called a studio or efficiency.
The Census Bureau asks the bedroom count at every housing unit, occupied or vacant. "The number of bedrooms is the count of rooms designed to be used as bedrooms, that is, the number of rooms that would be listed as bedrooms if the house, apartment, or mobile home were on the market for sale or for rent." The Bureau adds a rule that defines this category: "A housing unit consisting of only one room is classified, by definition, as having no bedroom" (ACS Subject Definitions).
The Bureau publishes bedroom counts in categories running from no bedroom through five or more. This measure is the no-bedroom category against the total housing unit count.
Studio share describes the small end of the local housing stock: how much of a tract's housing is laid out for one-person households rather than for families. It is the counterpart to large unit share, which covers the units with three or more bedrooms, though the two do not sum to one because the one- and two-bedroom categories sit between them.
Metrics in this family#
Considerations#
The no-bedroom category is defined by layout, not by size or by who lives there. A single-room unit falls in this category however large it is, and a purpose-built studio and a converted single room are recorded identically.
Bedrooms are counted by design rather than by current use: a room intended as a bedroom counts even if it is presently used for something else. The measure therefore describes how the stock was laid out, not how it is occupied today.
In many tracts the no-bedroom count is small or zero. Where it is small, the share rests on few units and a wide margin of error, and small differences between such tracts should not be read as meaningful separation.
The denominator is all housing units, including vacant ones. Tracts made up largely of group quarters have few conventional housing units and are not given a share; dormitory and barracks rooms are group quarters, not no-bedroom housing units.
Estimates are 5-year averages, and in tracts with few housing units the estimate carries a wide margin of error.
Census tract boundaries were redrawn for the 2020 census. Estimates published on earlier boundaries are carried onto current ones before use — see geography.
References#
- 1ACS Subject Definitionshttps://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/tech_docs/subject_definitions/2024_ACSSubjectDefinitions.pdf