“Rural America continued to lose population last year,” says the Carsey School of Public Policy, after perusing the new Census Bureau report on domestic migration. Some 46.2 million people live in the 1,976 non-metropolitan counties, a drop of 31,000 residents or 0.1 percent from the previous year “because of continued domestic outmigration,” says Carsey demographer Kenneth Johnson.
“Farm counties continued to lose population in 2013–2014, just as they did in the prior three years. Rural manufacturing counties, which have traditionally gained population, lost population because of a significant domestic migration loss” due to the recession and globalization, wrote Johnson. Recreational and retirement counties “experienced net domestic migration gains in each of the past two years, suggesting the slowdown caused by the recession may be waning.”
Aside from migration, 41 percent of rural counties confront “natural decrease” – more deaths than births – while only 18 percent of urban counties experience it, says Johnson. “This year, deaths exceeded births in two entire states: More people died than were born in both Maine and West Virginia.”