Portland has far fewer young children than it did just over a decade ago, and the ripple effects are already reshaping the city’s school system. New census data released the week before publication shows the number of Portland children under 5 has declined by more than a third since 2010, a shift that poses challenges for the city’s schools, public services and economy.
The numbers are stark: children under 5 made up 6.4% of Portland’s population in 2010 but now represent just 3.9%, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive. The outlet’s Mike Rogoway, writing in the paper’s Oregon Insight series on the numbers behind Oregon’s economy, reported that even outside Portland proper, children under 5 in the broader metro area declined a little more than 10% over the past five years.
Portland’s shrinking youth population is not happening in isolation. Ethan Sharygin, director of the Population Research Center at Portland State University, said lower birth rates are a national trend and that Portland is not exceptional among peer cities — most U.S. cities, he said, are seeing rapid declines of their own. Sharygin noted that Portland’s decline in the number of children is similar to what’s playing out in Austin, Minneapolis, Denver and Seattle, where young children currently make up between 4% and 5% of the population.
Why Portland’s Youngest Residents Are Disappearing
Several forces are converging to drive the decline, per the OregonLive report. Portland has seen a post-pandemic falloff in the number of migrants moving to the city, and declining U.S. birth rates nationally are associated with parents delaying having children and choosing to have fewer kids. Sharygin also pointed to economics: young families in big cities tend to have fewer children due to rising housing prices and stagnant wages…