Wisconsin birth rate lower, but bigger problem is that it's getting older

There's been some recent attention given in the news about the US's declining birth rate, which is now at 30=year lows, and the effects that might have on the economy and our society. And Wisconsin is not alone in this declining birth rate, which the
Wisconsin Policy Forum looked into in a recent report.

Over the past three decades, Wisconsin’s birth rate fell 22.3%, from 14.8 births per 1,000 residents in 1989 to 11.5 in 2016. (See Figure) The trend does not appear to be abating; Wisconsin’s birth rate has fallen in all but one year since 2007.

Less of these guys around in 2018

Most of the nationwide stories about declining borth rates center around the lower wages and larger debt loads that Millenial-aged parents have to deal with in 2018. Combine that with the lack of family leave in this country, the rising costs of child care (since both parents are working to pay off that debt and don't have the leave time), and the costs to have the baby at the hospital (even with state benefits, I was told it cost over out-of-pocket $2,000 to have that little guy), and it helps explain why fewer people are choosing to have children in the US.

But narrowing it down to Wisconsin, what’s interesting in the Policy Forum’s analysis is that the decline in birth rate has less to do with women not choosing to have kids. Instead, it has more to do with fewer younger women being in Wisconsin compared to other places.

These trends can be attributed in part to Wisconsin’s aging population. The decline in the birth rate over the years can be partially explained by the shrinking share of women between the ages of 15 and 44. While the total population of Wisconsin has continued to increase over the past three decades, the state has fewer women of child-bearing age now (1.08 million) than it did in 1989 (1.12 million). Similarly, because most births occur with mothers between ages 20 and 34, a drop in the share of women in those peak years can also lower the fertility rate…

Compared to other states, Wisconsin’s birth rate is relatively low, ranking 38th of the 50 states and 5.6% below the national average of 12.2 births per 1,000 people. Wisconsin’s fertility rate, by contrast, is only slightly lower (0.7%) than the national average of 62. Among the states, Wisconsin’s fertility rate is near the median, ranking 28th. States with the highest birth and fertility rates are scattered throughout the West, while those with the lowest rates are clustered in New England.

The decline in the state birth rate mirrors a national trend; since 1989, the U.S. and Wisconsin birth rates have fallen by 25.5% and 22.3%, respectively. When it comes to fertility, however, the state has recently diverged from the rest of the country. Although Wisconsin’s fertility rate remains slightly below the national average, the gap has narrowed substantially in recent years. (See Figure) As recently as 2002, the national rate exceeded the Wisconsin rate by 6.3 babies per 1,000 women of child-bearing age. By 2016, however, the gap had narrowed to 0.4%.

But the demographic issues still mean that Wisconsin has a lower birth rate in 2018. And that, combined with an increase of older Wisconsinites of all genders means that the state’s ability to grow its population has been limited.

The WisContext site from Wisconsin Public Radio and UW-Madison took on this topic of Wisconsin demographics in a recent article discussing the state’s low population growth in the 2010s. The article notes that Wisconsin is in the bottom ¼ among US states for the rate of population growth since Scott Walker and the Wisconsin GOP came to power in 2011 (39th), and has an uphill climb when it comes to adding people due to demographics.

Within these national shifts, Wisconsin tends to trail other states in population growth. The state generally has an older population, with a median age in 2016 of 39.3, compared to 37.9 for the U.S. as a whole. At the same time, Wisconsin receives fewer international migrants than other states — Wisconsin is home to 1.8 percent of the nation’s residents, but averages only 0.7 percent of its total immigrants.

Overall, Wisconsin’s population has remained fairly stable in the 2010s. Its total population change has been the twelfth lowest in percentage terms among all 50 states and the District of Columbia between 2011 and 2017.

Annualized Population Change Rates per 1,000 Residents, 4/1/2010 - 7/1/2017,
Infogram

Courtesy WisContext

A primary factor in Wisconsin’s modest growth rate in the decade is that the state has experienced a steady decline in its natural increase since 2007, the first year of the Great Recession. From its peak of 26,640 that year, the state’s natural increase has fallen 44 percent, to 14,810 in 2016. Wisconsin’s natural increase is ranked twenty-second [lowest] among the 50 states and Washington, D.C. in the period between 2010 and 2017.

Wisconsin also ranks in the bottom half of the Midwest for this statistic in the 2010s, only beating the even Rustier Belt states of Michigan and Ohio, and being notably slower than the two blue states that border us.

Annual “Natural Increase” per 1,000 residents, 2010-2017
Minn +5.17
Ill. +4.24
Ind. +3.56
Iowa +3.33
Wis. +3.08
Ohio +2.14
Mich +2.13

Think that strong number for Illinois and Minnesota may have something to do with offering higher wages along with a well-funded education system which encourages young families to live there? Sure, a lot of FIBs have been moving out as they get older, but if the exodus ever stops, you can see where they are poised to regain some of those population losses.

WisContext notes that Wisconsin did improve in 2017 when it came to population growth, adding over 20,000 people in a year for the first time since the Age of Fitzwalkerstan began in 2011. The main reason why was that we didn’t lose as many people to other states, and continuing a 2-year reversal of a trend where increasing number of people were Escaping from Wisconsin through 2015.

Wisconsin's Annual Population Change by Components, July 2017-July 2017
Infogram

Courtesy Wiscontext

Also note that 2017 was the first year in the Age of Fitzwalkerstan that we more international immigrants came to Wisconsin than the net number of Americans that moved out, meaning the state gained people from that trade. With these 2017 figures in mind, WisContext says that Wisconsin may be well-positioned to get back toward the level of population growth that it had in the 2000s, when the state gained more than 320,000 people.

But like a lot of things during this WisGOP Reign of Error, the state has been set so far behind that any “recovery” in economic and population stats still means that we end up trailing most of our neighbors for this decade, and the country as a whole. And only a change at the top will lead to the higher quality of life, smarter investments and better wages that could turn around the state’s declining demographics and still-tepid population growth.