The Rising Incidence of Natural Decrease in Nonmetropolitan American Counties

Kenneth M. Johnson, Loyola University Chicago

In 2002, more American counties experienced natural decrease than at any time in the nation's history. Natural decrease is most common in rural areas remote from metropolitan centers. Regional concentrations exist in the Great Plains, Corn Belt and East Texas, with scattered pockets in the Ozark Ouachita Uplands, Upper Great Lakes and Florida. Natural decrease is the consequence of a complex interaction between fertility, mortality and migration over a protracted period and is symptomatic of fundamental changes in the demographic structure of an area. Age structure distortion resulting from protracted, age specific migration is the primary cause of most natural decrease. Temporal variations in fertility also contribute, but it is not due to below average fertility in an area.