Oregon's population growth impacted by COVID, low birth rate, PSU says

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – After decades of population growth, the U.S. Census Bureau says Oregon is seeing more people moving out of the state than moving in – with much of the decline coming from people leaving Portland and Multnomah County.

According to the latest census numbers, 21 of Oregon’s 36 counties lost residents between July 2021 and July 2022. Multnomah County led the way with a decline of more than 10,000 people, the bureau says.

Oregon's overall population dropped from about 4,256,000 to about 4,240,000 – a decline of about 16,000 residents -- according to Census Bureau data.

Multnomah County’s loss is Clark County, Washington’s gain as communities, including Vancouver and Camas, saw population increases with many Portlanders choosing to live across the Columbia River.

Ethan Sharygin, the director of Portland State University's Population Research Center, says the university saw metros such as Seattle and San Francisco bounce back whereas Portland didn't comeback in the same way.

Sharygin notes PSU's data in 2022 differs from the Census Bureau's -- adding the bureau has earlier access to data such as address changes compared to the research center.

“[The Census Bureau] have data now for 2021, which they are applying to the first half of 2022. Whereas we introduce a regression model which takes into account things like job growth, housing starts, school enrollment. We look at a lot of state-specific data sources that the Census Bureau doesn’t. Because those numbers tend to be favorable for the state, that kind of attenuated the losses that we estimated in the state," Sharygin said.

According to PSU, Oregon's population losses were concentrated in Multnomah County, while other cities such as Bend were more resilient to the losses the bureau found in 2021 and 2022 around the state.

The population research expert adds, “migration is a hot-button topic but actually, fertility rate is one that I would highlight. The birth rate has been declining. Pre-pandemic, we projected that deaths would start to exceed the births in the mid-2020s due to population aging. Of course, the pandemic accelerated that.”

Sharygin says Oregon now has one of the lowest birth rates in the nation and thinks it's an underappreciated reason for the state's slowing growth.

“Our fertility rate, if you look at the birth rate, is around 1.4 children per women and that’s the same level as Japan,” Sharygrin said. “That has had a lot of implications, there’s a lot of reasons why that’s happening – it’s been a long-running trend since the 1990s."

While Sharygin says it's hard to say whether factors such as crime, vandalism or homelessness are factors in Oregon's population decline, he thinks the COVID-19 pandemic played a big role -- noting remote work and a tax incentive for working outside of the state for an Oregon employer.

“It’s kind of still an unknown question, we don’t really have the data specifically to determine what factors it is. I think when we talk about Clark County, for example, the best source that we have for point-to-point migration from Multnomah to Clark County would be those IRS data," Sharygin said.

“What we did see is that the growth in Clark County is kind of on trend from what we’re seeing from 2015 onward. Each year, there tends to be about 5,000 people moving from Multnomah to Clark and about 3,000 moving the other way," Sharygin said.

“I think it is worthwhile to ask why this is emerging. I think if it may have spiked during COVID in 2021, but that probably is going to be waning in 2022 and onward," he added.

As the research center studies enrollment projections for several districts around the state, Sharygin says they have been sending the message that the declining birth rate means Oregon's going to see smaller incoming class sizes.

“It is worth remembering Oregon, about every 40 years, has had three years of negative growth. We saw that in the early 40s, we saw it in the early ‘80s, we’re seeing it again in the early 2020s. I think that we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that we and other forecasters still expect about a million people to be added to the state’s population between 2020 and 2050.”