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Chuck Neeley
The California Department of Finance, Demographic Research
Unit, has just released new
projections of population by county by
age, race/ethnicity, and gender. The
time period is 2000 - 2050.
The reports are available on their Web site at: http://www.dof.ca.gov/HTML/DEMOGRAP/ReportsPapers/ReportsPapers.asp
Chuck Neeley
I believe that we have a degree of control over the destiny of Nevada County, if we will take the steps to plan for the future. One of the many newsletters that I receive is from State Senator Dave Cox. In his most recent edition was an article that speaks to destiny as it relates to demographics. It is a good read, and so I include it below in full for your reading pleasure.
Some of our readers may have seen headlines recently about population projections that forecast California to have nearly 60 million people by 2050, and that Latinos will be over 50 percent of the population somewhere around 2040. The current population of California is about 37 million.
There is no question that the Latino population in our state is growing, and the population of non-Hispanic Whites is declining. Let’s look deeper into these population projections and try to determine what they mean.
The projections recently featured in newspapers came from the State Department of Finance (DOF), which does research on population trends in the state. California is becoming increasingly diverse. The White population fell below the 50 percent mark just before the 2000 census was taken. At that time, it became reality that no racial group had a majority in California. Thirty years earlier, Caucasians were 80 percent of the state’s population.
It is also true that the state’s population growth no longer comes from migration from other states. That number is now negative, meaning more Californians are leaving to other states than are coming in from the rest of the U.S. Our growth now comes from in-state births and immigration from other countries, both legal and illegal. It is also a fact that our population is becoming older. The first Baby Boomers will reach retirement age in 2011, and the percentage of senior citizens will continue to increase after that. Between 2000 and 2020, the 65 and over age group is projected to increase by 71 percent.
On the other hand, the number of children in California is not expected to grow nearly as much. People born during the “baby bust,” which followed the baby boom, are having fewer children. In addition, second-generation Latino families have lower birth rates than their first-generation parents. The growth rate of working aged people aged 25-64 is expected to grow at a rate slightly higher than the overall population.
Geographically, it is a fact that population growth is faster in inland California than it is on the coast. The DOF projections show Riverside County growing by 3 million people over the next 50 years, and Placer County increasing by 500,000 – a 200 percent increase. Sierra County is the only county that the DOF projects will lose population over the next 50 years.
We must remember that these projections are just that: projections. Many things could happen in the next 50 years. The phenomenon that has upended previous projections has been economic recession, such as the one in the early 1990’s that cut California’s projected growth rate over that decade by nearly one million people.
What does all of this mean? It means that health care spending will continue to increase, and the demand for senior citizens services will go up. Since the aging of the population is a national trend, the pressure on Social Security and Medicare will be intense State school enrollment will slow, but many inland areas will continue to see challenges with more students from homes where English is not the primary language. Growth in the inland areas presents the challenge to increase our housing and transportation infrastructure while preserving agricultural land. And most importantly, we must preserve an economic climate that provides jobs to all of our citizens that will finance our aging, educational, and infrastructure challenges.
To look at the Department of Finance population projections, go to:
http://www.dof.ca.gov/HTML/DEMOGRAP/ReportsPapers/Projections/P1/P1.asp
Chuck Neeley
The Larta Institute has made available to the general public a guide which is quite useful for those business involved in innovation and R&D. Check it out at the following Web site:
http://www.larta.org/Veda/FTFG/Final%20FTFG.pdf
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