A beacon for young families: Texas added over 400,000 children and teens in the past decade

Population gains are bigger in Texas, as you might expect.

Texas added nearly 4 million people in the past decade, well over 1 million more than the nearest competitors, Florida and California, according to new census data.

The data revealed another strength for the Lone Star State: The under-18 population grew at a faster rate than in much of the nation, especially in large rival states.

That bodes well for Texas’ future, offering a counterpoint to the decline in overall birth rates and rising retirements among baby boomers. The pandemic also pushed many people out of the workforce, exacerbating a labor shortage.

“Texas is fortunate to have a gain in that younger population — a lot of states don’t,” said William Frey, a leading demographer and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Over the past decade, 27 states recorded a decline in children and teens, Frey wrote in a recent report. They include over half of the 10 most populous states.

Parts of the country that can beef up their younger cohorts — primarily through increases in migration — will have a leg up: They’re “going to be much better poised to survive the economic ups and downs we’re going to have in the next couple of years,” Frey said.

In the past decade, Texas’ population under the age of 18 grew 6%, according to recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau. That translates into nearly 413,000 more children and teens than in 2010.

In contrast, the U.S. had a slight decline in the under-18 age group, down by 1.4%. Nationwide, there were 1 million fewer children and teens than a decade ago.

In Georgia, another fast-growing Southern state, the under-18 numbers were flat. In California, where the total population grew by nearly 2.3 million, the under-18 cohort shrank by 6.3%. In Illinois, the sixth-largest state by population, the number of children and teens dropped by 10.1%.

Think the current labor shortage is tough now? It takes years for young people to age into the workforce, but at least Texas has a growing number in the pipeline.

Much of that stems from big increases in migration, especially from other states. From 2010 to 2019, Texas had net gains of nearly 303,000 residents from California, nearly 97,000 from Illinois and 91,000 from New York, according to data presented by the Texas Demographic Center.

“If Texas had not been receiving so many mainly domestic migrants, I suspect we would’ve been close to very little growth” in the under-18 age group, said Lloyd Potter, state demographer and director of the center.

From 2000 to 2010, 55% of Texas’ population gains were due to births exceeding deaths, or what’s called the natural increase. But that contributed just 48% of population growth in the following decade while domestic migration became the bigger factor.

Fertility rates, which estimate the total number of children a woman will have, have fallen sharply since the Great Recession. In Texas, the rate was 2.36 in 2008 and fell to 1.87 in 2018. A value of 2.1 is needed for the population to replace itself without immigration.

Texas’ fertility rate remains higher than the U.S. level, but Texas had a steeper drop in its rate over the 10-year period.

“Currently, we’re in a good position, but then again, we’re also importing labor,” Potter said. “When you look at the flows from California, New York and Illinois — those are all people coming here to work.”

They’re filling gaps in the current labor supply, he said, and seeding the workforce of the future.

“Families are moving here with children, and you also have young people moving here who are in their reproductive years,” Potter said.

Many of the fastest-growing communities in the past decade are located outside of major urban centers, and they often had strong growth in the young population, too.

Among children and teens, Collin County and Denton County had increases of over 23% and 25%, respectively, while Dallas County had a 2% decline in the group.

Dallas has been losing residents to surrounding counties for most of the past decade, in part because many employers located their businesses in suburban areas. That’s closer to where many families want to live and send their kids to school.

Usually, people under 18 don’t move on their own, Frey said, so increases in the young population are often from parents relocating with children.

“People who move as families move to where jobs are,” Frey said. “That’s the main magnet.”

“People vote with their feet, right?” said Luis Torres, research economist at the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University. “They want to live where they have the best opportunities for their family. And the attraction here is the economy is doing well.”

It’s not just the growth in population, he said, it’s also the mix of races and ethnicities that’s important. The main takeaway from the latest census is that people of color are driving growth, both for the U.S. and Texas.

Nationwide, the number of whites fell by 5.1 million over the past decade, according to Frey’s report. But the U.S. added 11.6 million Hispanics over the same period and almost 7.6 million people of two races or more. The country added 5.1 million Asian-Americans and nearly 2.3 million Black residents.

Since 2010, Texas had a net gain of 187,000 whites but added well over 3 million people of color. Whites accounted for less than 5% of Texas’ population growth for the decade.

“Texas is one of the most ethnically diverse states in the country, and we are where all of America is going to be in about 25 years,” said Steve Klineberg, a professor emeritus of sociology at Rice University. “This is where the American future is going to be worked out.”

People of color often lag in educational attainment, and Texas has ranked low on per-capita spending on K-12 education. In a broader measure of children’s well-being, the 2021 Kids Count Data Book by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Texas ranked 46th among the states. Its lowest scores were related to health care.

In the past, Texas’ economic success hinged on natural resources, such as cotton, timber and oil, and many could earn a living through manual labor. But today’s workers need a good education to thrive, Klineberg said, so Texas needs to invest heavily in public education and its diverse people.

“That’s the great challenge, and the jury is still out,” Klineberg said. “This ethnic diversity can be the greatest asset Texas could have — or it could tear us apart and become a major liability.”