NPR Population Shift
NPR is doing a series titled "Population Shift", which (like this blog) examines the effect of falling populations on the future. The articles mostly discuss fertility (as many of these articles do) but falling birth rates are just one part of the picture - migration (out of rural areas) is a big factor too, as this anecdote demonstrates:
Many communities, especially in rural America, already face serious demographic challenges.
"The decline here you see started a long time ago," said Jeremy Evans, head of the Franklin County Industrial Development Agency in rural upstate New York.
Franklin County, which lies near the U.S.-Canada border, has lost roughly 10% of its population since 2010. Some of that is due to young people leaving, but so few babies are born here that the local hospital closed its maternity ward three years ago.
According to Evans, there are plenty of good jobs, with an unemployment rate of just 3.8%, but not enough workers to fill them. "It became obvious: We have to make this the No. 1 focus," he said. "Our No. 1 mission is [attracting] 18-to-39-year-olds," he said.
But economists say recruiting young people will get harder nationwide as smaller families continue to transform the American population. Last year, the number of children in the U.S. declined slightly, while the number of seniors surged to 61 million.
My suspicion is that urban areas on the US coasts - the Northeast Megapolis, California, etc - will continue to thrive despite their relatively lower birth rates, as their amenities allow them to attract young people from more rural areas (and their relative friendliness toward immigrants). This will make the rural population collapse even worse. A higher birth rate does little for a region if all the kids grow up and leave.
The example of Finland, discussed in a separate article in the series, demonstrates that when people talk about the cost of childrearing being to high, they often aren't referring to the day-to-day costs so much as the opportunity cost. This dynamic was helpfully described in the recent book After the Spike. It seems unlikely that generous economic incentives parents leave will be enough to stem the decline; eventually these societies will have to adapt to a new normal (immigration, or declining population and their sequale).