If not for babies and immigrants, Metro Orlando would be shrinking. The latest U.S. Census estimates show that the growth of Orlando's families, together with its continued appeal to people from other countries, narrowly offset the loss of residents who left the state because of the recession.
The four-county metropolitan area grew an anemic 1 percent in 2009, adding 21,198 people. Two-thirds of the increase was the result of having nearly twice as many births than deaths.
Metro Orlando, which includes Orange, Seminole, Osceola and Lake counties, reached an estimated 2,082,421 residents in 2009.
"Orlando has a younger population with more women in child-bearing years, and that is not the image people have of Florida," said William Frey, senior demographer with the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. "Orlando is something of an anomaly."
Overall, senior citizens account for about 13 percent of Metro Orlando's population, making it one of the youngest major cities in the state. Orlando ranked 28th among the nation's metro areas in the percentage of people 64 or older, while the Sarasota region was tops, with 27 percent. Five of the nation's six cities with the highest percentage of older people are in Florida.
At the other end of the scale, Metro Orlando's under-18 demographic accounts for about 24 percent of the population, ranking it ahead of Tampa-St. Petersburg and the Sarasota area.
In contrast to Orlando, the retiree-rich Daytona Beach metropolitan area had 830 more deaths than births from 2008 to 2009. The area lost population because of deaths, out-migration and low immigration numbers.
Contributing to the Orlando area's baby boost is its sizable population of Hispanics, who have higher birth rates than do white and black residents, said Stan Smith, state demographer with University of Florida.
Hispanics also play a part in Orlando's growth because of foreign immigration. The area's international population continues to attract new residents from around the world. In 2009, the Orlando area gained 11,720 people who moved from other countries.
Tourism attracts visitors from around the world, and some come back to live. Those people, in turn, draw friends and relatives from their homelands who create ethnic communities within Central Florida.
"In general, people who have visited a place are more likely to move there permanently. It is also true that social and family ties with people who have moved there previously are important in migration decisions," Smith said.
The latest Census estimates confirm what demographers assumed when population figures indicated that the state had lost population in 2009: The loss was caused by a flow of residents leaving the state, reversing decades of in-migration. The Orlando metro figures show that the region had 4,279 more people move out than move in from other states. The Miami metro area had a net out-migration of 45,000.