By Stephen Stirling | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The typical New Jersey resident in 2018 is a 39 year-old woman of Italian descent. She lives in Middlesex County, makes about $38,000 a year and has at least some college experience. She's married, lives in a home worth around $328,000 and has a commute of about 31.8 minutes.

NJ Advance Media took a look at all of the most common traits of people in New Jersey using new Census data. It not only gives us a portrait of New Jersey, but also how it's changing. Here's a look at how we arrived at this, and where data tells us we may be going.

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Middlesex County: N.J.'s balancing point

Every 10 years, the U.S. Census calculates the central point of population in each state.

As growth has slowed in New Jersey, it has settled in Middlesex County, traveling slowly southwest, fittingly, down the New Jersey Turnpike. This means if you took everyone in the state and put them on a New Jersey-shaped scale, the balancing point in 2010 was Nenninger Lane in East Brunswick.

This isn't likely to change much in the coming Census as the state's population growth has been nearly negligible since 2010.

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A slight female advantage

There are slightly more women than men in New Jersey, something that also isn't likely to change because women, on average, live longer than men. All told, there are about 200,000 more women than men in New Jersey.

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A middle-aged state

The median age in New Jersey is 39.5 and has been increasing for a number of years. As it stands, the median age here is about two years more than that of the United States.

New Jersey has had difficulty attracting young homeowners in recent years for a number of reasons, most notably its notoriously high property taxes. The baby boomers, the largest generation in American history, are only getting older, so barring a shift, the typical state age will only increase.

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White and Italian, but for how long?

The most prevalent race and ethnic combination in New Jersey are white people of Italian descent. This could flip sooner than later, however. New Jersey is fast on pace to become a majority minority state. While it could be several decades before another race becomes the plurality of residents, the state's largest ethnic group could flip before 2030.

There are more than 580,000 Italian Americans in New Jersey, but it is not a growing population. There are now more than 470,000 people of Puerto Rican descent in the Garden State, a group that has been growing rapidly for decades.

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Education: a moving target

Our typical resident has a high school diploma and some college experience, but not necessarily a bachelor's degree or higher. This is true of both men and women currently.

But this has the biggest potential to change depending on sex in the coming years. In recent years, women have far outpaced men in terms of educational attainment. More than 48 percent of women aged 25 to 34 in New Jersey have a bachelor's degree or higher, compared to just 38 percent of men.

The split has the potential to upend the workforce significantly in the coming years, should the trend continue.

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An institution you can't disparage

Call us old fashioned, but New Jersey loves marriage. The state has one of the highest rates of marriage in the country (and divorce, but also second and third marriages!), with more than half of adults currently betrothed.

Households in New Jersey average less than one child per house, and families with children average less than two. This is notable because the state's birthrate has stagnated in recent decades, putting it a far cry from the days when most families in the country averaged more than two children per household.

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Income and commute

Our typical New Jersey resident earns about $38,900 per year, with a full household income of about twice that at $76,000. This is considerably higher than the rest of the country, but New Jersey also has a far higher cost-of-living than most states.

She has an average commute of a little more than half an hour, which is higher than most in the country. She owns a car and drives alone to work, as more than 70 percent of the state's workforce does.

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The American Dream prevails

The dream of homeownership is still alive and well in New Jersey. The typical state resident owns their home — more than 63 percent in the state do.

The median home value is about $328,000, which is 1.5 times that of the rest of the country.

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English remains language of choice

Nearly 70 percent of people in New Jersey speak English as their primary language at home, but that's down considerably over the last few decades. New Jersey has more than 1.5 times the amount of families speaking a language other than English at home than in the rest of the country.

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