Rural population fall mainly from out-migration; international in-migration was more than natural increase; see state data

Daily Yonder graph; click to enlarge

Rural counties as a whole lost population from 2010 to 2020 because people left them, and they gained more from international migration than from natural increase (births totaling more deaths), according to an analysis of new census data by Roberto Gallardo for The Daily Yonder.

 "The decrease from 2010 to 2020 was slight — about half a percentage point," Gallardo writes. But it was apparently the first time an overall decline in rural population -- actual numbers, not percentage -- has been recorded from one census to another. Each year from 2010 to 2015, rural population declined.

Large metropolitan areas also lost population from domestic migration, reports Gallardo, who runs the Purdue University Center for Regional Development. "The international or immigration component buffered population losses in both metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas," he writes. "This highlights the importance of welcoming and helping these groups assimilate into a community’s culture. Without them, population loss would have been higher coupled with the decreasing natural component and in nonmetropolitan areas, domestic migration."

Gallardo's very detailed story includes an interactive table with state-by-state data.