Yet, relative to the U.S. population, the counties with especially large declines continued to have a large proportion of younger working-age adults in 2021 even after these population losses.
Despite the big declines, these particular counties still had a larger share of young adults than the country as a whole (Figure 6).
As past stories covering the Vintage 2021 estimates have suggested, domestic migration during this time period is likely driving the change. These patterns indicate that although young working-age adults are leaving the central counties of these large metro areas, they are simply relocating to other counties in the country.
This may be related to the COVID-19 pandemic that created conditions enabling many workers to work from home and may have given these younger working-age adults the flexibility to relocate from areas with high concentrations of job opportunities to places with a lower cost of living or other quality of life improvements.
Catherine Doren is a demographer in the Population Estimates Branch.
More Articles
- Women's Labor Force Exits During COVID-19: Differences by Motherhood, Race, and Ethnicity
- GAO Report On Air Travel and Communicable Diseases: Federal Leadership Needed to Advance Research
- Justice Department Secures Agreement with CVS Pharmacy, Inc. to Make Online COVID-19 Vaccine Registration Accessible for People with Disabilities
- GAO* Report, Cybersecurity: National Institutes of Health Needs to Take Further Actions to Resolve Control Deficiencies and Improve Its Program
- Journalist's Resource: Religious Exemptions and Required Vaccines; Examining the Research
- Testimony of Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs: "The debt ceiling has been raised or suspended 78 times since 1960"
- Jo Freeman's Review of "Frankly, We Did Win This Election" By Michael C. Bender
- Researchers From Yale University, Stanford Medical School, University of California, Berkeley: Largest Study of Its Kind Finds Face Masks Reduce COVID-19
- The White House Says Boosters for All: Here’s What You Need to Know: “Stick to the advice from the CDC and the FDA, because they are doing their very best to ensure maximum protection and safety”
- National Institutes of Health: A Lancet Study Published Highlights Orphanhood as An Urgent and Overlooked Consequence of the Pandemic