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Under-65 population shows gain of 95

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

By Gary Rotstein, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

The mass graying of Pittsburgh's population and vast straying of its younger residents could be more past news than modern reality.

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That's the possible, positive spin from recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the metropolitan area's under-65 population actually grew a bit from 2001 to 2002.

Another theory is that the one-year growth spurt -- or trickle, actually -- among the nonelderly population is inconclusive. It could have little to do with longtime goals of retaining and attracting young workers.

Any growth would be a rare occurrence in recent decades, as demographics and economics conspired to make the six-county region one of the oldest population centers outside of Florida. Since 1980, greater Pittsburgh has had a net loss of about 300,000 people younger than 65, while gaining 70,000 who are older than that.

The July 2002 figures reversed that trend, or at least stopped it for a year. The population estimate of 2,346,525 reflected a loss of several thousand senior citizens and a gain of 95 individuals younger than 65 from the year before.

That plus-95 blip made waves as far away as Bahrain in the Middle East. That's where the gain was identified by Christopher Briem, who is on active duty as a Naval Reserve chief petty officer and is normally a regional economist for the University of Pittsburgh Center for Social and Urban Research.

"It's hard to tell you how many decision-makers I talk to who think the elderly population is going up and young people are leaving, when that characterization has not been true for [five to seven] years," said Briem, who began sending numerous e-mails back to Pittsburgh to highlight the net gain.

Officials in most metropolitan areas take it for granted that their young and middle-aged populations are growing, but that hasn't been the case for years around Pittsburgh. Fewer international immigrants arrive here than in most cities, and the annual number of deaths in the region exceeds births -- an equation practically unheard of outside the retirement havens of Florida.

Meanwhile, local job growth has been insufficient to draw workers and their families to Pittsburgh in large numbers from other states. Some of the region's analysts believe the plus-95 number cited by Briem could reflect the area finally doing a better job of retaining and attracting working-age people.

Kate Trimble, who works on population issues as New Generations Program director for the local Coro Center for Civic Leadership, said any net gain is worth a boost to the region's self-esteem. She plans to start citing that plus-95 number to anyone with old perceptions of young population loss.

"It's been a bleak picture for a long time, and if this is a positive uptick, I think that's a plus," Trimble said.

"Maybe there's news there that we're not what we're perceived to be, that we're [not] just going to get older and older," agreed Kurt Foreman, senior vice president of the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance.

The 409,000 people 65 and older in Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland counties is the same as the metropolitan area held in 1990. Simply by holding steady, they have been enough to skew the region's demographics because so many baby boomers left as young adults and built their families elsewhere.

The elderly peaked around 425,000 in 1996. As a percentage of the overall population, they have dropped from 17.9 percent then to 17.5 percent last year, still far higher than the nation's elderly makeup: 12.4 percent.

Some who study such numbers caution that last year's net gain in the non-elderly may not be significant. They say the shifting demographic balance in age probably has more to do with the number of babies born in different eras than with any improved perceptions of Pittsburgh as a place to live and work.

Robert Gradeck, a policy analyst at Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Economic Development, noted that the 2000 census showed 130,000 children younger than 5 in the region and 103,000 residents who were 60 to 64 years old.

The number of people entering the 65-plus category locally and nationally is relatively small, he said, because of low birth rates during the Depression and World War II. Even with improved health care and life spans among its oldest members, the elderly population is unlikely to grow until the baby boomers begin reaching 65 in 2011.

"It's just a historical trend playing itself out," Gradeck said.

Migration numbers can influence population fluctuations just as birth rates do, but Pittsburgh has been notable in recent years both for the small number of people leaving the area and for the even smaller number moving in from other states, he said.

Gordon De Jong, Penn State University professor of sociology and demography, said any positive census numbers for the Pittsburgh region merit some attention, "but I wouldn't make too much out of it till it becomes a consistent trend."