About Judith Graham
Judith Graham (@judith_graham), is a freelance journalist based in Denver and former topic leader on aging for AHCJ. She haswritten for the New York Times, Kaiser Health News, the Washington Post, the Journal of the American Medical Association, STAT News, the Chicago Tribune, and other publications.
Which region of the country is aging most rapidly? It’s New England, where all six states appear on the list of the top 10 oldest states in the nation, ranked by the median age of the population in 2010.
Oldest States in the U.S. |
Median Age |
Maine** |
42.7 years |
Vermont** |
41.5 years |
New Hampshire ** |
41.3 years |
West Virginia |
41.2 years |
Florida |
40.7 years |
Pennsylvania |
40.2 years |
Montana |
40.1 years |
Connecticut** |
40.0 years |
Rhode Island** |
39.6 years |
Massachusetts** |
39.1 years |
** New England state |
By contrast, the median age stands at 37.2 nationally and at 29.2 years in the youngest state, Utah.
I compiled this list after looking at a recent item on seacoastonline.com and deciding to run the numbers myself at the Census Bureau website. Although my data differs slightly from the information included in that story, the findings are essentially the same.
(Seacoastonline.com is a Web news site sponsored by the Portsmouth Herald, Exeter News-Letter, and Hampton Union, all of New Hampshire, and York County Coast Star and York Weekly, of Maine.)
“The biggest factors are the low birth rate here and the out-migration of young families looking for opportunities,” said Jim Breece, an economist at the University of Maine, quoted in the seacoastoneline.com report.
Breece’s observation is important: States where economic opportunities are few and far between are more likely to experience a departure of younger adults, leaving behind an older population and an altered economic climate.
The extent of immigration can also affect the age distribution of a state’s population insofar as many immigrants tend to be younger adults and families. Immigration is more common in other regions of the country than it is in New England.
Still another factor in a state’s age is its appeal to retirees. New England draws significant numbers of people who have finished working and are interested in moving to locations with historic communities, good health care, educational opportunities and cultural amenities.
On the other end of the age spectrum, the population of children is shrinking in several states; across New England, there were 200,000 fewer children in 2010 than a decade earlier.
“There isn’t enough affordable housing for young adults in the seacoast area,” Peter Francese, a Maine demographer, told seascoastonline. “Another reason is individual towns in New England do not like or want children because most property taxes go towards education.”
What’s the situation in your state? Has the median age of the population changed significantly over the past five or 10 years? If so, which factors are fueling the trend, according to local demographers?
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Judith Graham (@judith_graham), is a freelance journalist based in Denver and former topic leader on aging for AHCJ. She haswritten for the New York Times, Kaiser Health News, the Washington Post, the Journal of the American Medical Association, STAT News, the Chicago Tribune, and other publications.