Two states, Maine and Florida, will probably end twenty sixteen with more elderly residents than children. That’s unprecedented in U.S history, but which will soon be replicated in a number of other U.S. states. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, newly released Census Bureau estimates that pertain to July twenty fifteen indicate that a year ago, Maine was home to just two percent more children under the age of eighteen than adults aged sixty five or older.
Florida has about four percent more children than adults aged sixty five or greater. As recently as twenty ten, the respective margins were thirty percent and twenty three percent, but the number of older adults has simply skyrocketed. Nationally, there were fifty four percent more children than older adults as of last year. Low birth rates have contributed to demographic inversions in both Maine and Florida, but there are other factors at work.
For instance, Maine loses many young adults to cities like Boston and New York, but older residents exhibit a preference to age in place. Large number of retirees are moving to Florida, which adds to the elderly population. The state recorded fewer births in twenty fourteen than it did a decade earlier, in part because the Hispanic birth rate in Florida has dropped dramatically in recent years.