State Overview -- Missouri Population Change 1990-2003
Missouri population reached 5,704,484 by July 1, 2003 - an increase of 107,801 from the 2000 Census. That is an increase of 1.9 percent from April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2003 - a rate of population growth that translates into a much lower rate of growth than the 9.3 percent increase from April 1, 1990 to April 1, 2000. If the1.9 percent growth rate from 2000-2003 continues at the same rate from 2003 to 2010, Missouri's population will have grown by only 6.3 percent during the 2000-2010 decade - only about two-thirds of the 1990-2000 decade growth rate.
Graph 1 shows the year-by-year increase in Missouri population from 1990 to 2003. The graph shows that since 1990 the greatest population increase occurred during the 5-year period from 1993 to 1997. During that 5-year period Missouri's population increased by 264,092 - an average of 52,818 per year. Population growth per year during that period was much greater than during the 6-year period that followed. From 1998-2003 Missouri population increased by 223,591 - an average of 37,265 - 42 percent lower than the 1993-1997 population growth rate.
| Graph 1 click chart for larger version 
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By looking at the pattern of population change shown on Graph 1 it is clear that the drop in population increase from 2000-2003 is not unique to the past three years. Rather, the graph shows that the Missouri average population increase from 2000-2003 is nearly the same as the annual increase from 1998-2000.
Components of Population Change 1990-2000 and 2000-2003
Migration
The lower rate of population growth from 2000-2003 compared with the growth rate from 1990 to 2000 has been attributable almost entirely to the significantly smaller rate of in-migration recently compared with the rate during the 1990s. During the 1990s there were 258,585 more people who moved into Missouri than moved away. That was an average annual in-migration of nearly 26,000 during the 1990s. In contrast, there was an in-migration of only 43,115 who moved into Missouri from 2000-2003 - an average of only 14,400 per year compared with nearly twice that rate of in-migration during the 1990s. During the 1990s there were only 16 of Missouri's 115 counties that had more people move away than move in. However, from 2000-2003 there were 44 counties in which more people moved away than moved in.
Natural Increase or Decrease
In addition to migration, the other factor that contributes to overall population change of a county, region, or state is the difference between the number of births and the number of deaths. That difference is called a "natural increase" if there were more births than deaths or a "natural decrease" if there were more deaths than births. During the 1990s there was a natural increase in Missouri's population of 219,553 because there were that many more babies born in Missouri than people who died. That was an annual natural increase of 21,955 during the 1990s.
From 2000-2003 there were 64,686 more babies born in Missouri than people who died. That is an average natural increase of 21,562 per year. That is nearly identical to the average annual increase from 1990-2000. Similarly, there was little difference in the number of counties experiencing natural increase during the 1990s (72 of the 115) and those experiencing a natural increase from 2000-2003 (70 of 115).
When the natural increase is added to the net in-migration of 258,585 during the 1990s, the total Missouri population increase was 478,138 (9.3 percent increase). However, when the natural increase of 64,686 from 2000-2003 is added to net in-migration of 43,115 it produced a total population increase of 107,801 from 2000-2003. If that same rate of growth continues through the remainder of the 2000-2010 decade, it will produce a 6.3 percent population increase for the decade.
This file last modified Friday May 08, 2009, 14:28:16
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