Results from the 2000 Census confirm that Maine’s school-age population is shrinking, both as a percentage of the state’s population and in raw numbers. The drop is especially acute in Aroostook, Washington and Piscataquis counties, while in Cumberland and York counties the numbers actually rose, reflecting the differences between southern and northern Maine.

The trend has ramifications for both schools and the economy.

Some regions will face the mounting prospect of school closings and consolidation. The slide in the number of youths also could translate into a labor shortage that may dampen economic growth by making labor costly and crimping the pipeline of new ideas and enterprises.

The number of those younger than 18 in Maine fell from 25.2 percent of the state’s population in 1990 to 23.6 percent in 2000, according to the census.

As the baby boom generation ages beyond childbearing age, demographers have predicted that youths will become a smaller portion of the nation’s population. In fact, according to census data, from 1990 to 2000, those younger than 18 grew from 25.6 percent of the nation’s population to 25.7 percent.

Nationally, the number of youths increased from 63.6 million in 1990 to 72.3 million in 2000, a rise of 13.7 percent.

But Maine’s youth population – those who aren’t old enough to vote – already has begun to contract.

In round figures, there were 309,000 youths in Maine in 1990, and last year there were just 301,000, amounting to a drop of 2.6 percent. Statewide, the decline was among children under the age of 9, but in rural areas in the north and eastern parts of the state it reached into the ranks of older school-age youths.

If the trend persists, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, by 2025 Maine will have one of the smallest percentages of youths among all states and the District of Columbia, plunging from 42nd place in 1995 to 49th. Youths are expected to make up barely 20 percent of Maine’s population in 2025, according to the Census Bureau projections, compared to nearly 24 percent nationally.

Seven Maine counties already have begun to experience substantial losses, said James Breece, a macroeconomics forecaster in the University of Maine System, who also serves on the state’s revenue forecasting committee.

Along with Aroostook, Washington and Piscataquis counties, which had double-digit percentage losses in their total number of youths, Androscoggin, Franklin, Penobscot and Somerset counties saw their youth populations shrink by at least 7 percent. Just four counties, all along the coast, saw noticeable increases in the number of their population younger than 18.

Only a handful of communities in southern Maine are expected to run counter to the trend of falling numbers of children over the next decade, according to the Maine Department of Education.

Fewer children could mean smaller classes, smaller schools and fewer teachers. Shrinking enrollments also mean less aid from the state and the federal government, which distribute school funding, to a great extent, based on student populations.

However, existing buildings can’t be downsized just because enrollment dwindles. School districts will still have to maintain buildings and heat them, even if they hold fewer pupils.

Yellow Light Breen, director of special projects for the state Department of Education, said that districts would have to wrestle with these “fixed costs” as students ebb away.

In at least one way, educators will have to reverse the standard thinking of the past, Breen said. For the most part, school districts thought in terms of ever-larger enrollments when it came to school construction. In the future, districts “will have to be more cautious about overbuilding,” Breen said.

Beyond facilities, the shrinking enrollments will lead to questions about the availability of programs and regionalization.

Walt Harris, director of research and evaluation in the College of Education at the University of Maine, said that schools have a “baseline” of services that they must provide to students.

If one takes a “microperspective,” smaller enrollments mean smaller classes, which in some ways is good, Harris said. At a more macro level, high schools must maintain a certain mass of students to offer a variety of courses and activities.

The loss of children causes “significant strife as school districts are faced with the dilemma of funding a school for smaller and smaller numbers of kids,” Harris said.

It can be upsetting if a district that identifies closely with its school gets to the point of deciding whether to shut it down and send its children elsewhere, Harris said. “This is serious business.”

The shrinking youth base eventually will cause the state’s labor force to contract, making it harder for businesses to find workers, said Richard Sherwood, a policy development specialist with the State Planning Office.

This could benefit workers because salaries could rise because of the labor shortage. Conversely, it could be bad for employers who would see their wage bills expand.

That could deter businesses from moving to Maine, acting like a brake on economic development, Sherwood added.

According to Breece, the UMS economist, fewer young workers could slow the introduction and development of new technologies and ideas in Maine’s economy, because it is the young who learn and often implement new ways of doing things.

Those new ideas could decline with the fall in the youth population, he said.

A way to counteract that kind of slide is through improving the skill level of the work force, he said. To sustain economic growth in the face of a declining working-age population, a state needs the value-added labor that comes from a skilled labor force. A better-educated work force will command higher salaries and generate ideas that would buoy economic activity, he said.

Belfast was projected to have a significant decline in its youth population but the coming of MBNA turned that around, he said.

“So let’s not turn the lights off yet in Aroostook County,” he said.