BOWLING GREEN — While Ohio saw a small 0.22 percent increase in population from 2022 to 2023, long-term projections expect a continuation of a decades-long trend in declining numbers, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The state is still seeing a loss of 13,300 residents since pre-pandemic levels.
The state of Ohio Population Projections Report 2023 points to the aging of the population, declining fertility rates, and stagnant migration patterns. It projects a 5.7 percent decline by 2050, or a drop in the population by 675,000 people. Citizenry in the state already has declined by 10 percent in the decade from 2010 to 2020, according to the report.
“Ohio mirrors the rest of the country, traditionally,” said Wendy Diane Manning, a sociologist at Bowling Green State University, noting that the nation's decline in its fertility rate mimics what is happening in Ohio.
Nationally, deaths are expected to outpace births sometime from 2038 to 2042, according to census projections. International immigration will be an important factor in maintaining population. Ohio saw a net gain of 60,000 immigrants, domestically and internationally combined, from 2010 to 2020. It was the first decade of net positive gain in immigration to Ohio since the 1950s.
“The U.S. has experienced notable shifts in the components of population change over the last five years,” said Sandra Johnson, a demographer at the Census Bureau. “Some of these, like the increases in mortality caused by the pandemic, are expected to be short term while others, including the declines in fertility that have persisted for decades, are likely to continue into the future.”
In Ohio, the number of deaths during the pandemic outnumbered births. In 2020, about 143,600 residents died — the highest number of deaths recorded in a single year in the state's history. That number rose again in 2021 to 147,500.
The quietness of such numbers, black on white, belies the tumult required for communities to adapt. Some of it has already happened in the United States.
Population experts are correlating the ebb in babies to worldwide boosts in urban development and the escalation in the education of women. Economics remains a force, but subjective perceptions developed over the past few decades are playing a part.
The Canadian authors of Empty Planet reiterate one idea multiple times: “Once a woman receives enough information and autonomy to make an informed and self-directed choice about when to have children, and how many to have, she immediately has fewer of them, and has them later.”
From access to abortion drugs and procedures, to availability of in vitro fertilization to cultural shifts in personal fulfillment, family planning is looking to be a vastly different landscape in the 21st century. Its ground remains a battlefield in Ohio and beyond.
Ms. Manning, co-director of the National Center for Family & Marriage Research, maintains that subjective feelings in the wake of the Great Recession followed by the pandemic seem to be playing an important part in couples' family planning.
“This has been a long-term decline,” said Ms. Manning, adding that those of child-bearing age still see the shadow cast by the Great Recession from 2007 to 2009 and remember the struggles of their parents during that time.
Add the job expectations that were upended by the pandemic and there is a generation of young people who have little trust in their economic futures. They have already been told their cohorts will not surpass the quality of life of their parents. Once the burdensome costs of child care are tallied, caring for a baby is a fearsome investment.
“It is difficult for women to combine work and family,” said Ms. Manning, pointing out that people are waiting longer to get married and waiting longer to have children.
Yet the ideal remains to have two children, according to Ms. Manning.
“We do see people waiting longer because everything is not in place, where they feel comfortable having children,” she said.
The state of Ohio Population Projections Report 2023 notes that about 129,300 babies were born to Ohio mothers in 2020, which is the lowest number on record since at least 1950 and represents a 4 percent decline from 2019. Of course, the fertility rate during the pandemic may represent a mere blip, but the Ohio report concludes that it merely accelerated a decline that was already happening.
Sarah Hayford, a sociologist who directs Ohio State University's Institute for Population Research, also sees those sentiments playing out.
“Part of the reason that birth rates are low right now is that people are having children later in life,” said Ms. Hayford, noting that more are bearing children in their late 20s and early 30s rather than their early 20s. “It is possible that birth rates will go up in the future as people ‘catch up’ on the births they did not have early in life — or it is possible that birth rates will continue to be low and people will have fewer children overall in their lives.”
One of the reasons for postponing a family is to establish some financial security, including finding a stable job or buying a house, according to Ms. Hayford.
“They may also have higher standards for what it means to be a good parent, and they may be waiting to have children until they have reached those standards,” she said. “At the same time, there have been cultural shifts such that people feel they can have fulfilling lives without being a parent — having children is no longer seen as a necessary part of adulthood for all people.”
Some postulate that the Baby Boomer generation was a blip, and fertility rates are returning to a more natural level and no longer energized by a population ready to celebrate a war victory with lots of babies, a house, and a white picket fence.
Nationally, the U.S. fertility rate is reaching historic lows, according to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. Aside from a brief 1 percent increase from 2020 to 2021, the rate has consistently decreased by 2 percent from 2014 to 2020.
A 2024 global fertility study funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, points to a low-fertility future by 2100, when 97 percent of countries will have fertility rates below what is necessary to sustain the population over time.
“The implications are immense,” said Dr. Natalia V. Bhattacharjee, a co-lead author of the study and lead research scientist from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington's School of Medicine. “These future trends in fertility rates and live births will completely reconfigure the global economy and the international balance of power and will necessitate reorganizing societies.”
Even the world's most populous nations are forecasted to see significant population declines. A United Nations report indicates the population of China began declining in 2022, hitting 1.4 billion in 2023. By 2100, that number is expected to drop by at least half — to about 770 million. Meanwhile, India has surpassed China's population by about 3 million. The U.N. report projects that India's population will peak at 1.7 billion people in 2064.
“Fertility rates have been on the decline for a while now,” said Aliaksandr Amialchuk, a professor of economics at the University of Toledo. “There are many different factors. It is complicated.”
In the United States, he points to lack of stability in job markets as well as housing markets. He notes the cost of child care is daunting.
“Economy definitely plays a role,” he said. “The decision to have kids is very tough.”
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