Rural Retirement Destinations: Natural Decrease and the Shared Demographic Destinies of Elderly and Hispanics

The United States (US) population is aging rapidly. Increases in life expectancy, persistent and low rates of fertility, and aging of the baby boom cohort have shifted America’s age structure dramatically upward. In this chapter we examine the processes and implications of these longitudinal patterns of population growth and natural decrease in nonmetropolitan retirement counties. We do so by focusing on four specific objectives. First, we compare changing population growth rates in nonmetropolitan retirement to those of other types of rural counties. Second, we show how these population trends have been shaped by age-specific migration patterns across different kinds of counties, including retirement counties. Third, we evaluate changing patterns of natural decrease, which reflects both population aging and low fertility due to persistent out-migration of populations of reproductive age. Finally, we show how incipient natural decrease in many rural counties, including retirement counties, has been delayed or offset by new Hispanic population growth and high fertility, which has counterbalanced the high death rates of the white elderly population. We conclude that in many rural retirement communities, the social and economic interests of the elderly and Hispanic in-migrants are closely intertwined