Woolf: Why more than half of Vermont's counties are shrinking in population

We know that Vermont’s population increased slightly in 2017, the first increase since 2013. The Census Bureau has just released its estimates of county populations in each state, and it shows that less than half the state’s counties grew last year.

Between 2016 and 2017, eight of Vermont’s 14 counties lost population. Of the remaining six counties, Chittenden County experienced the largest increase, gaining 850 residents. That’s no surprise, since Chittenden County is by far the state’s most populous. But it also had the second largest percentage increase of any county. Only Grand Isle County grew faster, but that county is tiny, with just under 7,000 residents.

With more than 162,000 people, Chittenden County is home to one out of every four Vermonters. So for all practical purposes, Chittenden County had the largest absolute and largest percentage increase in population of any county in the state.

Over the longer term, nine Vermont counties have lost population since the 2010 census and the only counties with any significant growth were Chittenden, which grew by 3.6 percent over the past seven years, Lamoille, which added 3.3 percent, and Franklin, which gained 2.5 percent.

The other growing counties added only a small number of people, but that was still better than the state as a whole, where the 2017 population is still less than it was in 2010. While the U.S. population is 5.3 percent larger than it was in 2010, Vermont’s is 0.3 percent smaller.

Vermont’s counties grew slowly for the same reasons that the state’s population growth has been so slow. For one, over the past seven years, half of the counties experienced what demographers call a negative rate of natural increase, which means more people died than babies were born, and that trend is accelerating. Between 2016 and 2017, in only four counties were the number of births greater than the number of deaths.

Immigrants from other nations added to Vermont’s population, but not by much, and not in very many counties. Out of the 5,400 immigrants moving to Vermont in the past seven years, three-quarters moved to Chittenden County. Relative to its population, Chittenden County is the only one that attracts any sizable number of immigrants.

The most significant reason for most counties’ population decline was the net out-migration of residents. Since 2010 every county except for Lamoille and Grand Isle have experienced more people moving out than moving in — including Chittenden County. The largest county in the state experienced 1,879 more people moving out to other counties in Vermont and elsewhere than moving in.

These patterns have been broadly the same during this decade, and barring any major changes in the state’s economy, are likely to continue into the future. We know that Vermont is getting older, and in coming years the number of people dying will increase as the baby boom generation ages. Births statewide continue to decline, so soon every county in Vermont, including Chittenden, will have more deaths than births.

If migration patterns continue as they have this decade, there will be more people leaving Vermont, and just about every county in Vermont, than moving in, including Chittenden. The negative demographics affecting Vermont are also being felt in the state’s largest county. Probably the most telling indicator is that the fastest growing Vermont counties, including Chittenden, are growing more slowly than the nation as a whole.

Art Woolf is associate professor of economics at the University of Vermont.