Northeast population drops despite immigrants’ influx

BOSTON – A large population migration out of the Northeast slowed the region’s population growth during the past decade despite a record influx of foreign-born immigrants, according to a new study.

The nine northeastern states, which include the six New England states, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, gained about 3.1 million foreign-born immigrants between 1990 and 2000 – the greatest wave of immigration in its history, the report states. But over 2.7 million residents moved out of the same states, according to the Northeastern University study released Monday.

New York had the largest number of residents leave, with about 1.7 million, or just under 10 percent of the population, leaving the state.

Massachusetts and New Jersey lost about 298,000 and 408,000 residents respectively to other regions, or about 5 percent of their populations.

Details about people who moved, and to where, are still not available under the most recent census figures, but data for previous years indicate they tend to be educated young adults between the ages of 20 and 40, and tend to move to the South, said study author Andrew Sum, of Northeastern’s Center for Labor Market Studies.

“That’ll impose labor supply constraints on us over the rest of the next decade,” Sum said.

The Northeast’s population rose by only 5.5 percent between 1990 and 2000, compared to a national average growth of 13.2 percent.

The West outpaced the nation with a 19.7 percent population growth, with the South following with 17.3 percent. The Midwest registered 7.9 percent growth.

Those regions would have experienced growth even without foreign immigrants, the report finds. But without foreign-born immigrants – which included those born in U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico – the Northeast would have lost 0.6 percent of its population.

Northern New England experienced the largest growth in population even without foreign immigrants, with New Hampshire registering the highest growth at 9.5 percent, Vermont 6.7 percent, and Maine 3 percent.

Since the 1930s, the population has grown more slowly than the rest of the country, and its share of the population has dropped from 28 percent to 18 percent during that time.