Data compiled by state demographers points to an overall population decline of 4% for the Gulf Coast region of Alaska by 2050 as deaths start to outnumber births, according to a new report released on Dec. 2 by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
The report in the December edition of Alaska Economic Trends, a state labor department publication available online, also projects an overall statewide population decline from 737,000 people in 2023 to 723,000 by 2050, a 2% decrease stemming from prolonged net migration losses, and the number of births being fewer that deaths reported.
While the overall population size is not projected to change much over the next 27 years, its makeup will shift to a considerably older state with fewer children, according to David Howell, the statewide demographer for the labor department.
On a regional basis, the Gulf Coast Region is expected to grow initially but start to decline in 2030. It is currently the oldest region in Alaska and by 2030 its deaths will begin to outnumber births, the report said. Combined with small net migration losses, the natural decrease signals an overall regional population decline of 4% by 2050.
The past 11 years of net migration losses has turned the long-term average rate increasingly negative, the report said.
“That’s not to say that we won’t see spikes and dips in migration, but if the next 30 years resemble the previous 30, that rate is the average amount we expect to lose to migration each year between 2023 and 2050,” economists said.
However, the economists acknowledge that migration is uncertain – especially over such a long span – and so they produced high and low scenarios to show what could happen if those trends change.
The high scenario uses a net migration rate of 0.5% per year, as Alaska has seen higher inflow rates over the past 30 years, although not for sustainable periods.
Under such a situation the state would gain between 3,700 and 4,500 people annually via migration, leading to rapid population growth. If the state averaged a 0.5% inflow each year over the next 27 years, the population would reach 911,100 people. A 1% low scenario, on the other hand, would drop the population to 587,600 by 2050 – a loss of 5,900 to 7,300 people to net migration annually.
State data collection found that natural increase, or births minus deaths, has been trending downward since the late 2000s and that the decline accelerated in the middle of the last decade. In fact, over the past two years, natural increase hit its lowest level since the early 1950s, when there were fewer than 200,000 people in the whole state.
The forecast is for natural increases to continue to decline over the next few decades. Alaska gained 3,550 residents through natural increase over the past year and the projection is for that natural increase to drop to just 300 between 2049 and 2050.
Meanwhile, births have declined and deaths have increased – with a total of 5,580 deaths just last year. Researchers are projecting death to rise 37% by 2050, peaking at 7,740 in 2045-2046 – the year the oldest baby boomers would turn 100. While overall mortality in Alaska has not increased, the increasingly older population is the reason deaths are projected to climb, unless an increasing number of older people leave the state.
The state’s overall fertility rate, the average number of children per woman in her lifetime, is currently at 1.9 – below the level needed to replace the existing population at a rate of 2.1. But despite being at a low replacement level, Alaska’s fertility rate remains among the nation’s highest. Only South Dakota and Nebraska had higher fertility rates in 2022, and no state’s rate reached replacement level in that year, although South Dakota was the closest.
In contrast, the Alaska Native population has maintained a fertility rate of 2.8, generating steady growth from natural increase. While the Alaska Native population lost ground due to migration, its growing youth population has offset those losses. Projections are that the Alaska Native population will grow by 13 % between 2020 and 2050 (from 160,300 to 181,900 people) and Alaska Native residents will make up 25 % of the state’s population in 2050, up from 22% in 2020.
The state’s senior population (those 65 and older) in 2023 represents 15% of the total population, but is expected to peak in 2036 at 135,200 people – before declining as baby boomers enter the highest mortality ages. Beyond 2050, millennials’ aging will rapidly increase the senior population, according to the report.
Researchers projected a long-term decline in the working-age population of 20- to 64-year-olds, with a reduction of working age people from 430,700 to 423,700 – but beginning to rebound by 2040 before millennials begin to reach retirement age. Once millennials reach 65, the working age population will decline rapidly due to the younger generations not being big enough to replace them, the report said.
