The population of rural America grew just one-tenth of the national total of 3.1 percent from 2010 to 2015, and foreign-born residents accounted for three-fourths of the rural gain, says the Daily Yonder, drawing on Census Bureau data. “Without the increase in foreign-born residents, the rural population growth would have been 0.1 percent, Census estimates show,” instead of the 0.3 percent growth that was recorded.
While foreign-born people were key to rural population growth, they are still a fraction — 4 percent — of the 46.2 million rural Americans. By contrast, in the largest U.S. cities, nearly one-fifth of the population is foreign born, says the Yonder. Although the rural population rose slightly during the five-year period, the increase was not uniform geographically. “Population fell in nearly two out of three nonmetropolitan counties. Most of that decrease occurred in the nation’s smallest rural counties.”
Demographer Ken Johnson of the University of New Hampshire said young adults are the group most likely to leave rural towns and counties. “So when a county loses those young people, it loses a lot of its potential, too. You’re not just losing those young adults, you’re losing the people who are going to produce the next generation,” Johnson told the Yonder.