An Unexpected Turn for California's New State Population Report

Last July, Joe Mathews of Zócalo Public Square wrote a rather startling column, "Could California’s Population Actually Shrink?" in which he asserted that the state's population "will hit 40 million this summer." 

While we can only speculate on the answer to Matthews' question, we do know that he was wrong on his assertion. As of Jan. 1, the state's population still hadn't reached 40 million. With the addition of 186,807 new residents last year, the population reached 39,927,315 according to population estimates released by the Demographic Research Unit (DRU) of the state Department of Finance on May 1.

"The overall growth rate slipped to 0.47% last [calendar] year from 0.78% in 2017, the slowest since data collection started in 1900, department spokesman H.D. Palmer said," report Javier Panzar and Sarah Parvini for the Los Angeles Times. "Officials noted last May that California’s population had grown by an average of 333,000 people a year since 2010." Growth last year was 44 percent lower.

"This rate is driven by a significant decline in births, down by more than 18,000 over the previous year, as well and data reflecting lower student enrollment," notes the bottom of page 1 of the 12-page report [pdf]. "Deaths continued an upward trend seen since 2010 as California’s 'Baby Boomers' continue to age."

Readers following Califonia population in Planetizen would not have been surprised at the 0.47 percent growth rate. The DRU's report released Dec. 21, 2018 (posted here) estimated the population growth for the 2018 fiscal year (July 1, 2017 to July 1, 2018) at 0.54 percent and an addition of 215,000 residents. That post also indicated that Census Bureau data for the same period estimated California's growth at 0.40 percent, well below the national growth rate of 0.62 percent, an 80-year low. The two agencies use different data collection methods.

Population decline in the nation's most populous county

"The number of residents [in Los Angeles County] dropped from 10,254,658 to 10,253,716 by the end of 2018," note the reporters. "This is the first time since 2010 that the population dropped in the county, officials said."

Immigration changes are a major factor

"Ethan Sharygin, a demographer with the state, said researchers had expected to find a decline in the birthrate but were surprised to see such a large change," add Panzar and Parvini. "One reason for the shift, he said, is the decline in immigrants from Mexico paired with an increase in Asian immigrants."

“The overall profile of immigrants to California is higher education, which correlates to lower fertility,” he said. “With native-born, we see a long-running trend throughout the U.S where fertility has been trending downward.”

The inference is that Asian women have lower fertility due to higher education. Adam Beam of the Associated Press also cites Sharygin his widely published piece on the DRU report who notes that birth rates are higher in Mexico than China.

Net domestic migration data, which has been negative since at least 1990, was not included in the May 1 report, unlike the Dec. 21, 2018 report, which found that net migration, which includes both domestic and international movement of people, had reduced to 21,000, accounting for 10 percent of the state's growth. 

Wildfire effects

Another noteworthy aspect of the report are demographic changes resulting from the Camp Fire in Butte County, the most destructive wildfire in California history, killing 85 people and destroying over 14,600 housing units.

"The fire destroyed almost 90 percent of the housing stock and displaced 83 percent of the population in the Town of Paradise, which suffered the loss of 11,371 housing units," according to the 12-page DRU report [pdf]. "The majority of the displaced persons relocated to the surrounding cities of Chico and Oroville, each adding more than 20 percent to their total populations." [Italics added].

What's even more surprising is that Chico, which was the 86th largest city in the state in July 2015, led the state in numeric growth as well as the rate of growth, gaining 19,250 new residents to total 112,111. Contrast that numeric growth with the sizes of the next cities that grew the most:

With a population of 508,000 persons, Sacramento added over 7,400 persons. San Diego (1,421,000) added 6,200 persons, followed by Irvine (280,000) adding 6,100 persons. Santa Clarita (218,000) rounds out the top five cities by numeric growth with 5,700 new residents due to a large annexation from Los Angeles County.

Housing shortage and aging population

Dowell Myers, a professor of demography and urban planning at the University of Southern California who has written extensively on the state's housing crisis and its detrimental impact on population, is cited extensively in the article by Panzar and Parvini.